


Take Care

by discosludge



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Slow Burn, but not enough to hate the people in it, lw kind of hates the world, sometimes we get a little fluff here, two stupid youths and a dog and some leather jackets, when your childhood bully becomes your only friend oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23468005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discosludge/pseuds/discosludge
Summary: At some point, unbeknownst to her, he had started taking care of her just as much as she had been taking care of him.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 63
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

What once had been Aria’s childhood home, was now splattered with the blood of people she had known, people she had grown up with. It was mostly officers who had tried to fight her, approaching swiftly with their clubs held high. How naive they must have been, to think that she was still the same teenaged girl who had escaped the vault with only a pair of scratched glasses and a 10mm pistol. Aria steps over makeshift barricades and dead bodies, Amata’s urgent message still playing over and over in her mind. When she sees Freddie Gomez in his tunnel snake jacket, she wonders if he would even recognize her—his first kiss. She scoffs at herself. What an odd thing to cling to. 

She weaves through the rest of the vault, traveling through territory that would have once been familiar. Dogmeat trails behind her, on edge in the dark underground. They pass by Stanley, who can barely look at her with anything more than contempt. It stings to know that he hates her now, probably along with any other person in the vault. She takes the steps slower, half part eager to find Amata, half part anxious that she was going to run into another person who hated her. All of the people she had been close with, that she had known well were either dead or they didn’t like her. She was unwelcome in the only home she ever really knew. 

When she rounds the corner she can already see her next obstacle, standing straight ahead in his pomade and leather. His back is turned toward her, she knows he can’t see her, but she can’t sneak up on him, can’t afford anymore anger at the hands of people she thought she once knew. 

“Butch.” Aria calls out his name, just loud enough to get his attention. How long had it been, since she had said that name? So many years he had incurred that name from her lips, in rage, in frustration, in exasperation. Strange now, that it had turned to a plea. She watches as he rolls his neck and turns to face her. 

Even in the lowlight of the half-running vault, she can see the changes in his face. His eyes are more tired, sunken in more than they had been a year and a half ago. A thin layer of five o’clock shadow occupies his sharp jaw, clearly an unwelcome visitor. His hair was still perfectly quaffed, however, and that, oddly enough, brings Aria a sense of comfort. At least some things were still the same. 

“Jesus Aria,” he sighs out her name with a shake of his head. “Takes real balls to come back after skippin’ out with your dad.” 

“Miss me?” She asks. Maybe she would provoke like when they were kids, and he would sock her or something. Just like old times. All he does is glare, one eyebrow furrowed with a grimace on his lips. 

“What the hell is that?” Butch points to Dogmeat with the handle of his switchblade. Aria looks down at the dog, at his matted fur and mismatched eyes. In truth, Aria had no idea how to take care of another living thing, but Dogmeat had made it easy. He was just as lost as she was, an animal out of time, out of place. It didn’t hurt that he was a good guard dog too, but his companionship had always meant more to Aria than his ability to scare off weaker Raiders. 

“He’s a dog,” she says with a shrug, suddenly feeling very protective of her canine friend. “His name is Dogmeat.” 

“No shit it’s a dog,” Butch growls out. “Why does he look like that?” 

“Look like what?” Aria asks. 

“I don’t know,” Butch says with a noncommittal shrug. “Like he’s sick or something.” 

“Stop being an asshole.” Aria bites back. Here they were again, arguing like nothing had ever changed. Of course, the fact that Aria was in leathers and had more scars than she could count was a clear indicator that everything really had changed. But arguing with Butch felt familiar, felt natural. It brought her back to a place of confidence, a place where she could be comfortable where she knew she was no longer welcome. 

“So you heard her, huh?” Butch’s question breaks Aria out of her thoughts. She blinks at him. 

“You friends with Amata now?” Aria asks incredulously. She taps the toe of her boot onto the hard floor, listens to the way it echoes down the hall. These halls were emptier than the ones below them. Amata must be close. 

“Hell no, but her dad has fuckin’ lost it. And you’re the best bet she thought we had of gettin’ out of here.” Butch states it plainly, but the idea behind it isn’t lost to Aria. They had both wanted to…leave? Of all people, she cannot imagine Butch much less Amata out there in the wastes. As eager as she was to see Butch deal with a Molerat for the first time, there were greater dangers outside than there were inside. 

“Is it really that bad?” Aria asks as she places a hand on Dogmeat’s head. She absentmindedly scratches at the fur there. 

“Yeah,” Butch responds. “Thanks again, by the way.” 

“Oh don’t blame me,” Aria retorts, angrily throwing her hands up. “It was bound to happen anyway. Besides, you owe me.” 

“Puh..” Butch waves his hands out in front of him as if to say ‘shut up,’ but he knew that she was right. Had it not been for her, Butch’s mother would be dead. She’s sure it doesn’t make him feel good to remind him of his own cowardice, but if it would do anything to combat this vitriol he was forcing upon her, so be it. 

“I’m gonna go talk to her,” Aria pinches the bridge between her nose before speaking again. “Can you watch Dogmeat? I’ll be right back.” 

“Hell no,” Butch says at first, then, “I ain’t watchin’ your fleabag mutt.” 

“Butch…” Aria starts to walk past him, looking up at him. He still had a good head over her, too tall to ever reach. “You owe me, remember?” 

He grumbles and grabs the dog by his collar. 

“Fine,” Butch says. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.” 

“Up until now, right?” Aria barks out with a laugh, already past him. 

“Shut up, nosebleed.”

* * *

When the Overseer lies dead at Aria’s feet, she remembers the way Amata had spoken to her when she had walked into the vault. She had looked at her like she didn’t even know who she was. Aria, who had braided Amata’s hair for the Winter Formal. Aria, who spent every Mother’s Day with Amata, sipping coffee and reading old magazines to get their minds off of the day. And now she would hate her more than ever.

A part of Aria is relieved for this fact, to know that the hate was justified now, not just some inexplicable thing that appeared out of nowhere. At least now she had a reason to be hated. 

Butch finds her first, wanders into the room with Dogmeat at his heels. He makes a low whistling noise, out of surprise or appreciation Aria couldn’t tell the difference. She doesn’t look at him, unsure of whether or not his face would be any particular comfort at the moment. 

“You gotta get out of here.” He said it in a way that implied it was for her own good, but Aria wasn’t so sure. Didn’t she deserve the wrath of the daughter whose father she just killed? If there was any justice in the world, shouldn’t she too have to face it? Aria blinks at the body crumpled at her feet before turning around to face him. 

“Thanks for watching Dogmeat,” Aria says it listlessly as she walks toward him. Through an unfocused gaze, she can just barely make out that he’s staring at her, watching her approach then begin to walk away. Dogmeat trails after her, eager to be out of this dark place with his owner. “See you around, Butch.” 

With one last glance at the body she begins to leave the room, not even bothering to stick around to see Amata’s reaction. She would deserve the hate, to leave like that was evil, but she couldn’t bear to hurt Amata. Or rather, she couldn’t bear to see how much she had already hurt Amata. She held no pity, no place in her heart for the Overseer, but to take a father away from a daughter was a pain that Aria was all too familiar with. 

Her and Dogmeat find their way out of the vault, away from the officers and the rebels who were moving toward the upper levels to find their dead Overseer. Aria watches them run past her, none of them even sparing her a look as she exits back out to the Wasteland. Vault 101 would close to her, and for good reason. It wasn’t her home anymore—not really. She lets the vault door creak open like a metal giant stretching its old bones, then she walks out to the Wastes. 


	2. Chapter 2

Aria stops turning her PipBoy radio on when she gets close to Megaton. She was too smart to believe that Amata would ever speak to her again, but the pain of hearing her voice was too frightening a concept to Aria. She keeps the radio off, lets the silence wrap itself around her for a little while. In her house in Megaton, she lays with eyes wide open, staring up at her dingy ceiling, peering through the holes to catch glimpses of the night sky. Every night she thinks of what she could have said to the Overseer, just to make him see where he was wrong. She replays the conversation in her head, looping it over and over again, tortuously. Nothing comes to mind, no words come to form that could have possibly stopped him from attacking her first. Would they ever know? Amata wouldn’t. She would think that this new, violent, feral Aria would be the first to pull her gun out. That she would pull the trigger? They would believe that Aria had taken the Overseer’s life for something so plain as a disagreement. Would Butch think she shot first? She’s not sure why Butch’s opinion means anything to her, it had never meant scratch before yet there had been some small comfort in his reaction to seeing the dead Overseer. He wasn’t mad at her. He had offered her a few words of warning.That meant more to her than she had realized when it first happened. 

Aria thinks, she should have told him that she still has the jacket. 

It is only a few weeks later that she and Dogmeat are making their way over to Rivet City when they come across a raiding party. They were lucky enough to spot the party first, before they were spotted themselves. Her and Dogmeat had gotten good at being stealthy, at being unseen. His fur blended with the landscape so well, and she was grateful for her own small size. She and Dogmeat duck under a rock, and Aria quickly scans the horizon, checking to make sure they weren’t being watched in return. 

Her eyes catch something strange not too many feet away from them. It looks like a person at first, someone crouching in what looks like a leather jacket, a green snake embroidered on the back. 

“Fuck.” Aria swears under her breath. She knows that jacket, has an exact replica of that jacket tied around her waist. In one million years, the last person Aria would ever expect to see sneaking around a group of raiders in the Capital Wasteland was Butch Deloria. And yet, there he was—alone. She doesn’t want to risk throwing something to get his attention, nor would she dream of making any noise. Raiders weren’t always the smartest, but they had a keenness about them that made stealth the only option. 

The only small comfort came in the form of Butch’s clear hesitation. At least he was being smart about it, rather than charging in with what Aria assumes is just a 10mm pistol and that stupid switchblade of his. Though, she’s beginning to fear that his unwillingness to move will cause problems if the raiders make their way around the outcropping he is currently taking shelter under. She goes over the options in her head, wondering what could possible be done beyond causing a ruckus. Aria is compelled to keep Butch alive, for whatever reason, and her’s and Dogmeat’s wellbeing was another priority. Beyond that, there was only so much she could realistically do. Butch wasn’t moving. The onus was on Aria to get things started. 

She grabs at sniped pistol that is strapped to her hip, praying that she has just enough rounds to get a few quick headshots in to the even the field. The air stills around them, and Aria can feel it—the cool electricity that occupies the space and time right before a fight begins. Being out in the wastes so long had made her senses more keen to that feeling, had made her a sharper, more observant person than she ever could have been locked up down in the vault. 

She lifts the gun up to her line of sight, squints against the scope. There is a clear shot on one of the raiders, his head remarkably still for someone who had to live in a place where staying still for too long meant sudden death. Not to mention all of the drugs he was sure to be on. She flicks the safety off then finally, after what seems like a century, she pulls the trigger. 

The fight starts off with a bang, quite literally, as the group of Raiders scurries trying to find the source of the shot. Aria can get in two more headshots as they still don’t see her, and she watches as the bodies slump to the ground with a few unceremonious ‘thumps’. She doesn’t have time to check whether or not Butch had responded to the shots, but she hopes that he has taken the sudden chaos as an opportunity to get away. 

Without much warning, a bullet ricochets off of the rock she is hiding behind, and Aria knows now that they have found her hiding spot. Dogmeat lets out a ferocious bark, his battle cry, before charging forward with a leap toward the nearest raider. They fight like this in a flurry, and Aria dodges back and forth, to and fro, avoiding bullets to the best of her abilities. Someone, or something, else begins to shoot from her side, but she has no time to check and see who her ally is. Two raiders remain, a man and woman, both adorned in their spikes and metal. They snicker and sneer at her, and the woman lets off a shot that just barely grazes Aria’s thigh. 

The searing pain is the first thing that Aria feels, almost as if someone has taken a hot poker to her skin. She can feel the warmth of her own blood as it seeps into her pants, down her leg. It would be a nasty wound, but it wouldn’t be the reason she would die. She wouldn’t let it. 

Aria shoots the woman in the head—point blank. As the male raider watches his companion hit the dirt, Aria lets off another shot, this one going through the man’s neck. She has a second to take in his shocked expression before he plummets to the earth. 

“Holy shit,” Butch’s voice—of all the voices on the godforsaken earth—is the one she hears first as the battle stills. “Aria.” 

She looks over at him, not even registering that this is his first time seeing her since she had killed the Overseer. He probably thought that she was a madwoman. Killing the first thing that would cause her problems. 

“Butch,” She speaks his name, somewhat out of shock, somewhat in greeting. “What the hell are you doing?” 

“Me? What the hell are you doing?” He asks her, incredulously. As if she was the reason this was strange. It would seem that no matter what Aria did, she could never really escape Butch, or the people of the vault, or more likely, the memories of the vault. It would be a brand on her until the day she died. 

“Saving your dumbass,” Aria bites out each word, letting the anger bubble up through her throat with each syllable. “Why are you out here?”

Butch doesn’t respond at first—a clear hesitation lurking behind each of his thoughts. Aria can see it on his face, the way his brows furrow and the way he works his teeth against his bottom lip. His eyes turn down toward the blooming stain of blood on her thigh. 

“You got shot,” He says, plainly, eyes steady on the dark red patch. 

“It grazed my thigh.” Aria retorts as if its the smallest of her problems. In reality, the open wound was a glaring issue. If the bleeding wouldn’t get her, then an infection would. 

“Fuck,” Butch says. His places a hand on his forehead, eyes wide at her leg. Aria couldn’t help the frustration at his reaction, how obviously untrained he was. “Can you walk on it?” 

Aria already knows that she can’t, but hardly wants to give him the satisfaction of seeing it. She clenches her jaw, grinds her back molars until she hears the uncomfortable click of her jaw. 

“No,” She finally answers. 

Butch scratches at the back of his neck as he stares at her. She could almost taste his discomfort in her mouth, hated the way he had turned so sheepish at the sight of her blood. Dogmeat, apparently done with his own form of scavenging, steps over toward her, his grey, fuzzy head quirked in canine confusion. Butch’s eyes flicker quickly over to the mutt, recognizing the pup, before returning to Aria’s leg. 

“Well, uh…” He trails off. “I owe you, or whatever. Let me take you to a doctor or something.” 

Aria blinks at him, feeling the lightheadedness start to kick in. Sure, she was losing a lot of blood, but her dignity wouldn't allow her to acquiesce. 

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Aria huffs out, air leaving her lungs faster and more than she had been expecting. Being conscious was starting to become an effort, which was hardly a good sign in terms of blood loss. 

“You look as pale as a sheet,” Butch says, hands out as if to catch her. “I’ll figure it out.” 

“Butch…” Aria has to stop talking, feeling a sudden rush of dizziness overcome her. Butch reacts quick, arms out like he’s about to catch her, before Dogmeat growls at him. 

“Relax, pooch. I’m tryin’ to save your human friend.” 

It’s the last thing she hears before everything goes dark, before the ground and the sky and everything in between is swallowed by the emptiness of sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the feedback and kudos :) it is appreciated!! onwards and upwards, stay safe out there.


	3. Chapter 3

James stands in front her, separated only by a few inches of glass. She can see him so clearly, hear him so clearly. His eyes were the wrong color, dull and white like the ghouls who lived in the old museum. His skin turns to paper, his words feel wrong, cruel. Aria pounds at the glass, but her hands are slow and useless. 

She hits the switch and wakes up. 

The first thing her eyes can make out, are the bright lights above her. After that, the smell of antiseptic, the sound of another’s breathing, Dogmeat’s pants. From what her sleep-addled mind can surmise, she’s in a metal room, probably somewhere in Rivet City. Dogmeat was nearby, as was another person. She conjures the last memory of being awake, remembers Butch helping her limp slowly back to the dilapidated boat. 

She looks over at the chair across from her, sees his form slumped, fiddling with a PipBoy— _her_ PipBoy. 

“Stop messing with my shit,” Aria croaks out. If Butch has been surprised by her sudden alertness, he doesn’t show it. He looks up at her, nose wrinkled and eyebrows furrowed, before placing her PipBoy down on the medical table that beside her. 

“Yeah—“ Butch begins. “Morning to you too, sunshine.” 

“We in Rivet City?” Aria asks. If the gentle creaking of the walls was any indication, she knew that they were. Not to mention it had been the closest city with a doctor nearby anyways. She would hope that he would bring her here, rather than to a some small settlement with a hack doctor who couldn’t sew a wound shut. 

“Yeah,” Butch nods as he speaks. “They tried to stop me at the bridge, saw you though, then they let me in. You must be their little hero of the week, huh?” 

Aria tries to think on all the good that she’d done for Rivet City and nothing in particular comes to mind. Three Dog had hardly been shy about spouting out her accomplishments to the listening world, but the city specifically didn’t really owe her anything. 

“I’m surprised you got me here in one piece,” Aria says. “My hero.” 

Butch scoffs, rolls his eyes in such an exaggerated fashion before landing back on her face. She watches the way he is studying her, sure he’s picking out all the things that have grown different with time and wear. Her eyes still feel heavy, thick-lidded from meds and too much sleep, her mouth is dry. The last thing she really wants or needs at the moment is the heavy scrutinization of a man who referred to himself as a ‘snake.’ Aria looks down at her leg, sees the heavy gauze pad wrapped tightly around her thigh, sees the uneven tearing of her jumpsuit. There was still blood seeping through the gauze, but at least it was wrapped tightly, and, if her extreme dizziness was any indication, she was certainly on drugs for it. 

Dogmeat perks his head up from the ground, his chin previously resting right by Butch’s left boot. He stands up, makes his way to her bedside and sniffs her hand, tail wagging all the way. 

“Hey boy,” Aria says as she pats the short fur on the top of his head. “Thank you for protecting me on our journey back here, my good boy.” 

“Hey!” Butch protests. “I did most of the work. All he did was pee twice and growl at a bunch of harmless brahmin.” 

“Oh I’m sorry, Butch, you were also a very good boy.” Aria jokes. Butch rolls his eyes. As if he had any legitimate reason to be jealous of a dog. 

“Yeah,” Butch grumbles. “You’re welcome, by the way.” 

She studies him through dry eyes, a sleep-addled brain. In all 20 of her years, she would never think to consider Butch as _endearing_ but his childlike pout, his crossed arms, and the fact that he had literally just saved her life were enough to put the word in her head. 

“I appreciate it,” Aria says. “You know, after I saved your life.” 

“I coulda’ taken those guys!” 

“ _Butch—“_

Their argument is cut off by the mechanical hiss of opening doors. The older doctor, Dr. Preston, steps into the room, eyes focusing behind glasses on Aria’s form. Seldom did Aria find herself in the clinic as most of her wounds were either minor enough to fix herself, or ignored altogether. The man is no stranger, however, and she knows that he remembers her from her dealings with Harkness. 

“Aria, right?” Preston asks.

“Am I cleared to go?” She asks with a nod. Preston looks at her above his rims, a straight line occupying his lips. Aria doesn’t have to think too hard to know what that look entailed. She wasn’t necessarily eager to be up and about, but laying around, stuck with Butch was hardly the way she wanted to spend the rest of her day. 

“No,” Preston replies. “You and your friend have to stick around for a while longer, until I give you the clear.” 

“What’s wrong with him?” Aria asks as she looks over at Butch. If he is hurt there’s no indication of it—in fact, he looks quite well, leaner, more muscular. Aria blinks at him, trying to figure it out. 

“Light irradiation poisoning, we want to finish the RadAway dosing before setting him loose.” Preston explains. 

“I’m not a dog, doc,” Butch whines. “Don’t talk about me like I’m one.” 

The doctor ignores him. 

“I don’t know your relation to him, and I don’t want to know. But we’re a bit full up now, so you two’ll be together for the night and some of tomorrow.” 

Butch and Aria groan in unison. 

Aria doesn’t feel she has the strength to argue, despite the feeling of impending doom at the prospect of sharing a room with Butch for more than 12 hours. The feeling of annoyance settles firmly in her throat, stifling itself just before she can complain any further. There was no use in arguing, and, truthfully, if she got up and walked out there would be little any of these people, Butch included, could do to stop her. 

“If you need anything, holler,” the doctor says. He is already beginning to stand up from his seat as he speaks, already finished with the whole affair. “Better yet, send your dog.” 

Aria chances a peek down toward where Dogmeat is laying by Butch’s feet. How quickly her pup had endeared himself to the man, it was almost enough to make her laugh. When he sees her looking, Dogmeat lifts his head up, ever the attentive pooch. Aria had never thought about having a pet while she was in the vault for obvious reasons, but Dogmeat was more than a pet. If anything, they were more like partners. As Aria looks up from her dog to Butch, she wonders whether the equation will change. 

Preston takes the lack of response as his cue to leave followed by the strong smell of cigarette smoke and antiseptic. Unsure if its the stench or the meds, the smell makes Aria’s stomach unpleasantly turn. She lets out a groan as she cranes her neck to look upward at the dingy ceiling. 

“You gonna puke?” Butch asks. 

“I’m fine,” it’s a lie, but she hopes the lack of content in her stomach helps quell any actual vomit. 

“Sure,” he responds. “They gave me a bucket, but you look like you need it more.” 

She watches as Butch nudges a small metal bucket toward her with the toe of his leather boot. It was a surprising act of selflessness—especially after she had been such a brat to him earlier, when she first woke up. Aria had never even heard the man say ‘bless you’, much less do anything for anyone other than himself. Her eyes move back up toward his face, just to make sure it’s the same Butch she knows. 

He looks the same, for the most part. There are subtle changes in his face, a stubble on his chin and a shallowness to his high cheekbones that leave him looking rather sleep-deprived, but he doesn’t look particularly unhealthy. There’s a toothpick in his mouth. _Where the hell did he get a toothpick from?_ Aria wonders. 

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Butch’s voice interrupts her thoughts. Aria blinks at him before quickly averting her eyes. A hot flush creeps up the back of her neck, turning the tips of her ears a muted red. 

“You look different,” she says, blaming the rather childlike simplicity of the statement on the drugs she was on. “Your face.” 

It wasn’t really a complete thought, and it surely lacked any sort of reasonable explanation for why she had been staring so intently, but it was the best she could come up with without sounding like a loon. 

Butch doesn’t say anything in response, opting instead to hum in agreement. Or maybe it was disagreement. It didn’t really matter. His lack of a response was jarring to Aria, the man rarely kept his mouth shut. Especially with comments about his appearance. 

“You look different too.” Butch finally says after moments of silence. 

“Do I?” 

“Hair’s longer,” of course the first thing a barber would notice. “Your face looks meaner, I don't know how to describe it.”

_Meaner?_

Aria couldn’t really determine her reaction to that notion. What did it mean to have a _meaner_ face? Vanity was hardly something one could afford in the wastes, so Aria can hardly recall the last time she really evaluated her own personal appearance. For the most part, her hair was kept in a braid down her back, out of her face and out of the way. Lack of nutrition surely shred some vault-weight that she had been carrying, but she wasn’t sure it was possible to lose weight to look _meaner_.

“Thanks, Butch.” Aria finally settles on a response. He lets out a scoff of a laugh before returning his attention back toward Aria’s PipBoy, his fingers fiddling with the knobs haphazardly. 

After some time deciding whether to stare at Butch, Dogmeat or the metal walls, Aria finds herself nodding off to sleep, the world fading fast to the fuzz of a drug-addled rest. Over the course of the night, Aria wakes up a few times, each time to a different scene. The first time, Butch is sleeping too now, his head drooped and arms crossed. It would be endearing, if it wasn’t Butch.

The second time is a little stranger. Her eyes open lazily, half-lidded and still struggling to stay open, to Butch sitting closer to her bedside this time. She doesn’t make any moves, her body still too tired to even attempt any sort of movement. But she can hear him quite well, and he’s talking. 

“—hard to believe it’s the same kid. If you would have known her back then, you wouldn’t even think it’s the same person.” As far as Aria can tell, there’s no one else in the room, so he must be talking to Dogmeat. Aria gets it. She felt odd talking to him when Dogmeat first started traveling with her. Eventually, one just gets used to talking to a dog. 

But who was Butch talking about? 

“It’s kinda crazy you both are alive,” he says. “I mean, she couldn’t even beat me in a fistfight when we were kids” 

A lie—Aria had beaten him on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, puberty reared its ugly head and Butch got big and Aria stayed small. They stopped fighting after that. 

“Don’t tell her I told you, but it was kinda nice runnin’ into you guys. I felt like I was on my last limb out there.” 

Her fingers twitch, and she feels a strange sense of warmth flood her chest. Of course, it had been nice to see a friendly face, even if she would never admit it to him. Aria thinks of her first few days out in the wastes, her first few weeks, and the idea of someone she knew appearing and saving her ass sounds like a heaven-send. She can only imagine what that must feel like for Butch—Butch, who was afraid of Radroaches of all the things to be afraid of. An image of Butch lying dead in the dirt comes to mind, his leather jacket stained dark red with his blood, the vulture descending. It brings a sick feeling to her stomach, a chill to her spine. Banishing the image from her head, Aria drifts back to sleep. 

The third time she awakes, it’s the last time. By the chill through the boat’s thin metal walls, she can surmise that it’s probably early morning, early enough that none of the city’s residents were awake yet. That includes Preston. She wills her eyes to open, to move despite their heaviness. The small room still occupies the three of them, her and Butch and Dogmeat. Butch’s head tilts upwards, and when the sleep sheds from her eyes, she can see that his eyes are open, pointed toward the ceiling in a bored glaze. 

“Morning, Butch.” Aria says quietly, her voice raspy from being unused. 

His head jerks in her direction, eyes blinking at her a few times as if to take in the full image of her. There is something odd in his gaze, something uneven in the way that he is staring at her. Dogmeat perks his head up from his cozy spot on the ground. 

“Hey,” he says. “You were snoring.” 

Aria rolls her eyes. She knows she wasn’t snoring, she had never snored in her life. It felt like a deflection, a way to avoid actually saying anything of value to her. 

“I wasn’t, I know I wasn’t.” 

“Tell that to the dark circles I got under my eyes,” Butch points a finger at the cool, purple-toned patches beneath his eyes. Aria knew it wasn’t from her snoring. She wasn’t the one keeping him up. 

“Be serious with me, Butch,” she says. “Why didn’t you sleep last night?” 

“I slept.” 

“I said, be serious.” 

There is a heavy silence that hangs between the two of them, the sort of awkward silence that occupies a room with two people whose acquaintance could be described as tentative at best. He lets out a deep sigh, one that Aria can nearly feel in her own lungs, before averting his gaze. 

“When I was fiddlin’ with your PipBoy, I found a recording,” Butch starts. “I didn’t know what it was at first so I played it, then once it started I couldn’t stop it. So I heard the whole thing.” 

Aria had a pulling feeling in her gut, fairly confident with which recording Butch had heard. 

“You heard the one of my mom,” Aria says with a sigh. “And my dad. Right?” 

Butch doesn’t say anything. They sit in silence once more, either one unsure of where exactly this conversation could be headed. Butch clears his throat. 

“Where’d you find it?” He asks. 

“My dad’s old lab. I think he must’ve left it on accident when we got to the vault.” 

“What do you mean ‘got to the vault’?” 

_Oh._ He didn't know that Aria hadn’t been born in the vault. Of course, there could be no way for him to know without her expressing it to him directly. Unless the Overseer had brought it upon himself to besmirch her and her father as not only traitors, but also outsiders. The idea of the Overseer brings a sneer to her lips. 

“Well, it might be hard to believe.” Aria says. 

“Try me.” Butch responds. 

She pinches the bridge of her nose, willing all of her thoughts to stay together up in her head. Surely, it couldn’t hurt to tell Butch the truth. But to what end? How much did she have to share before he became a liability?

“I was born outside the vault,” Aria begins. “When my mom died in childbirth my dad decided to haul ass to the nearest vault—which just so happened to be 101. Well, I guess the vault needed a doctor because they let us in. The rest is, you know, history.” 

She can almost see the cogs and gears turning in Butch’s head, watches the way his eyes flicker back and forth briefly before landing back on her face. 

“There's a lot about your parents that you didn’t know, huh?” Butch muses, and while his tone doesn’t betray any sort of cruel intent, there is a bite to it that settles uncomfortably in the air. No, she supposes she never really knew them at all. 

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Aria says coolly. “They’re both dead—my fault.” 

The silence that follows hangs heavy in the air. Butch doesn’t inquire further about her father, and a part of her is grateful that she doesn’t have to expand on one of her many fuckups. So many people in her life had been lost because of her. To think of them tastes like poison, curdles and curls around her stomach like a clenched fist. No bullet wound, no amount of radiation poisoning hurt quite as much as the weight of one’s own failures. 

“I’m gonna stay here in Rivet City for a little while,” Butch interrupts the silence, no doubt uncomfortable with the sudden tension in the air. “I’m not risking my ass out there if I don’t have to anymore.” 

“That’s probably for the best,” Aria says as she watches him stretch his arms, roll them in a wide circle, then stand up. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m leaving,” Butch responds. “It’s gettin’ kinda glum in here, and I got better things to do than sit and rot in a little metal room with you.” 

His statement feels like a cold slap. Aria lets out a scoff, watches as his back turns to her toward the door. 

“Fuck you.” She says. 

“Hey,” Butch flings up a middle finger at her, not bothering look back as the doors swing open. “Look me up if you need a haircut.” 

The doors slide shut behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheesh, you think you know a guy.   
> Thanks for reading! and thank you for the feedback and kudos. More to come soon. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a quick warning, this chapter focuses heavily on alcohol and drinking.

At the moment, nothing sounded quite so appealing as a cold drink in a dark bar. When the moon hangs high in the sky, and Aria can see the dilapidated ship, it’s form cracked open on the horizon like a broken vase, she knows just where to go. It had been months since she had been to Rivet City, months since the wound on her thigh had healed. A bullet-shaped scar patterns her leg like a birth mark. She avoids looking at it whenever she needs to get changed—a reminder of a mistake, of a person she would have been better off leaving well alone. Aria isn’t sure that she really believes that, but it makes it easier to hate, easier to forget. 

Dogmeat prances at her side, his pants a welcome soundtrack to most of her days. If anything was keeping her sane in this entire fucked up universe, it was the constant companionship of her pup. 

The pair make their way up the metal stairs, onward toward the city she had once found some comfort in. As they pass the guards, Aria sees a few new faces, young men and women who craved the opportunity to protect whatever earthly things that they cared about. She wonders what that must feel like, to take ownership of the place that you call home, to care so much about it that you’d be willing to take up arms and shoot whatever threatened the city it kept. A part of her wants to laugh at them all, laugh at the guards at Rivet City, laugh at the guards down in Vault 101. Was any of this really worth protecting to them? Crumbs of an old civilization scrapped together to form a semblance of normalcy? None of it really seemed worth a damn to her—not anymore. 

When they enter the ship, the smell of stale air and cigarettes wafts through the air, clinging to every surface like a moss. The lights are dim, the hallways relatively empty at the late hour. Aria and Dogmeat wander through the halls, their footsteps quiet. It takes her a few minutes to realize that there was really no reason to be so quiet, so tentative. They weren’t in the tunnels anymore, weren’t at the mercy of feral ghouls or radroaches or whatever other terrible thing that the wasteland had reserved for her. It’s a hard habit to break. 

Aria hears the music first. It a soft sound, emanating from the direction of The Muddy Rudder. As they approach the music becomes louder and louder, and the sound is welcome to Aria’s ears. It had been so long since she had turned on the radio, had been so long since she had heard the voice of someone not demanding something of her, or yelling at her, or requesting something from her. Her stomach turns when Three Dog talks about her, regaling stories of her doing good and evil, the Wasteland’s favorite character. You’d think meeting in person would make his less of an ass, but alas. 

Brock stands at the door, his arms crossed in his serious stature. Aria cocks her chin up at him before stepping in further with Dogmeat. Voices intermingle with the music downstairs, and the air smells of whiskey and tobacco. Aria takes a deep breath and walks down the stairs. 

Trinnie wanders around, her arms twitchy but her eyes glazed. Aria watches as she steps over the bar, attempting to get something out of Belle no doubt. But someone else is at the bar too, and his jacket is familiar. Aria lets out a humorless laugh. Naturally. 

She walks over the bar and takes the seat next to Butch, while Dogmeat pads over to lay behind them both. He doesn’t seem to see her, his head laid lazily on the bar’s surface. A half-drunk bottle of whiskey sits in his reach, its capped tossed to the side. Part of her pities him like this, another part of her wants to laugh. 

“Well if you’re not gonna finish it, I will.” Aria says as she grabs the bottle and takes a long swig. It’s thick and burns like fire going down her throat. The syrupy feeling settles in the pit of her stomach, blooming warmth that radiates from her shoulders to her fingers, from her legs to her toes. 

Butch’s head snaps up, and already she can see the confusion and rage intermingle with one another in his expression. Stubble rests on his chin and cheeks, and the cool blue of his eyes are tinged with a hazy redness. Aria smirks at him. 

“You look like shit,” she says. 

He coughs once, twice, before snatching the bottle out of her hands, and she can briefly feel the cold clamminess of his palm. 

“Get your own, pipsqueak.” He says before taking a huge gulp of the brown liquid. When he puts the bottle back down, he winces and hisses. 

“And smell like you do right now?” Aria says. “I’ll pass.” 

He doesn’t dignify her with a response in words, just cracks his neck and turns away from her. Aria leans over the bar to try and look at him, but he’s turned away from her, hiding from her. It’s almost enough to make her feel bad, so she turns her eyes away toward Belle and signals her. 

“Haven’t seen you in a while kid,” Belle says as she walks over toward them. “Thought you’d kicked it.” 

Aria barks out a laugh. “And miss out on the fine drink and conversation here? Perish the thought, Belle.” Though the older woman is immune to Aria’s smarm. 

“What’d you want?” She asks. 

“Two glasses please,” Aria glances at Butch next to her. “One vodka, one water.” 

Belle blows air out of her nose, sparing Butch a piteous look. “You know him?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well get him out of here,” Belle says as she turns around to make the drinks. “He’s stinking the place up.” 

Aria couldn’t argue with that. Butch smelled like an entire distillery. 

Belle finishes the drinks and slides them over to Aria, as Aria slides a few caps over. More than enough, she’s sure. Aria takes a deep breath, grabs her glass and shoots the vodka. It stings, strong and potent as it slides down her throat. It’s a good sting, like a wound being cleaned. She clears her throat and sets the glass down, turning toward Butch once again. 

“Here,” Aria moves the glass of water toward him. “Drink.” 

Butch grumbles at her. 

“Doesn’t water sound good right now?” She’s basically pleading now. 

“Go away.” He mumbles, his head still resting lazily on the countertop. 

“Fine,” Aria nearly jumps off the barstool, her patience reaching its peak. “I’ll leave.” 

“Good.” His voice strains against his arms and the leather of his jacket, but she can still hear the venom behind his words. 

“Seriously?” Aria’s can feel the alcohol in her blood, can feel the heat of her own rage. 

She picks up the glass of water and dumps it on his head. 

“What the fuck!?” Finally, a reaction from him. Butch’s head shoots up, water dripping down his perfectly quaffed coil onto his face. In some sick way, Aria was rather pleased with herself, finally dragging him out of his stupor. 

“Waste of perfectly good water,” Belle says as she puts her hands on her hips. “I need to get Brock?” 

Butch stares down at Aria, his eyes hazy and angry all at once. She watches a rivulet of water drip down his forehead, down his sloped nose, past his lips, then settling on the adam’s apple on his neck. 

“No,” Butch retorts. “I’m leavin’.” 

He huffs, stumbles off the barstool, then heads for the stairs. Aria watches his retreating form, a strange mixture of emotions broiling inside of her. For now, the strongest was anger as she thinks of his complete indifference to her, his unwillingness to acquiesce, his inability to even look her in the eyes until she had forced it out of him. Pity follows, thinking of him alone in the dank and dusty bar, falling prey to vices that had haunted his mother. Aria settles on sadness—sadness that it had come to this. She sighs. 

“Sorry Belle,” she says as she stands up and brushes herself off. “About the water.” 

The older woman just shakes her head and waves her arms as to dismiss the apology. Ariasets a few extra caps on the counter and she makes her way out of the bar, Dogmeat following close behind. 

Wandering the hallways, it doesn’t take all that long to find Butch. It was late, and empty and quiet, not many were out. She finds him leaning against one of the walls near the church, his head turned upward, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. Dogmeat lets out a soft whine and plops down on his haunches. If the sound alerts Butch at all, he doesn’t show it. 

“I’m sorry,” Aria says, approaching him slowly. “That was a shitty thing to do.” 

“Nah, I—I was being an ass.” 

Aria stops. Butch had never admitted a wrongdoing in his life. She swallows, suddenly unsure of how to proceed. 

“I—I shouldn’t have pushed, you were obviously having a bad day—“ she’s cut off by a bitter scoff from Butch. “I mean, I was just surprised to see you.” 

He doesn’t say anything to her, and she can’t think of the right words to fill the empty space between them. It had been so long since she had seen him, and to see him in such a state was more painful for her than she had realized. She didn’t hate him—hadn’t hated him in a long time. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Butch cranes his neck over to look at her, and she meets his eyes, illuminated by the dim light above them. They were the same blue they had always been, but in this light they looked watery, glazed over by alcohol and time and sadness. 

“Butch—“ 

“You kept the jacket.” 

Aria frowns and looks down to her waist, where her old Tunnel Snakes jacket is tied securely around her hips. She hadn’t even thought about it. 

“Yeah I mean—I mean it’s not a big deal,” her words stumble out clumsily. Butch pushes off the wall and steps toward her, the smell of whiskey and tobacco following him. 

“Why’d you keep it?” His voice sounds sad, distant. He’s standing close now, so close that she has to look up at him. Aria shakes her head, the alcohol making it hard for her eyes to catch up. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Aria is insisting now, and she’s sure she sounds like a lunatic, stuttering and tripping over her own words. Why was this so hard? 

She sighs, admits defeat. “I guess it reminds me of home.” 

Butch nods, doesn’t pry further than that. If he was disturbed by her abysmal lack of conversational skills he doesn’t show it. She looks up at him, surprised to see a soft smirk on his lips, a wistful gentleness in his eyes. In the dim light of the ship he almost looks handsome to her. Aria blanches at the thought, surely fueled by the alcohol in her system. 

Butch furrows his brow, widens his eyes, and before either can say a thing, he vomits at her feet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback and kudos are welcome and appreciated. More to come soon!


	5. Chapter 5

It takes Aria nearly an hour to clean the vomit off of her boots. She had meticulously scrubbed every inch of them, once, twice, three times, before she was sure they were probably the cleanest they had been in their entire lifespan. No amount of ghoul guts or radroach refuse compared to the sticky, bile-y mess of vomit. When he was sober and awake, Aria swore on her boots that she would kill Butch. 

As it stood, he was still asleep and her plans of vengeance would have to wait. 

After his incident, Butch had muttered a half-conscious apology under his breath and collapsed against the wall of the hallway. Aria couldn’t leave him there, and the smell alone would alert anyone to his presence. So she had hauled him up on her shoulder, and set out to the hotel with a drunken, passed-out man and her dog in tow. It had taken some time to get to the Weatherly Hotel, and that time had only seemed to go on further with Aria’s current embarrassment of a situation. Smelling strongly of vomit, she was glad that by the time they had gotten to the hotel, Vera Weatherly was long asleep, and Mister Buckingham was manning the front desk. The Mr. Handy wouldn’t judge, or so Aria had hoped. 

By the time they had gotten to their room, Aria’s arms were exhausted from hauling Butch all the way up to the hotel room. She had thrown him on the bed, and headed off toward the bathroom. It had been a long night, filled with cleaning and occasionally checking on Butch to make sure he hadn’t thrown up again.

When Aria is sure that he is fully asleep, she takes her seat on the couch. Dogmeat pads over to her and jumps up on the couch next to her. He rests his head on her lap and lets out a soft whine. 

“I’m sorry Dogmeat,” Aria says. “I know you don’t like strangers.” 

Dogmeat doesn’t respond, as per usual, and just gazes up at her with soft canine eyes. She smiles down at him.

“You’re a good dog,” she says. “Not sure I deserve you.” 

Aria rests her head against the back of the couch and closes her eyes, wills her mind to be quiet, her thoughts to stop rushing back and forth. There had been a strange moment right before Butch had thrown up. Of course, now any memory of the moment would be tarnished by the carnage that immediately followed it, but it still stuck out to her. Why had he been so insistent about the jacket? Why had it made her so nervous? 

The thoughts follow her to her sleep. She doesn’t dream that night. 

* * *

When Aria wakes up in the morning, her head pounds, and she swears she can feel the stench of vomit lurking in the back of her nostrils. She keeps her eyes slammed shut, hearing the sound of the faucet in the bathroom, weak and dripping. Butch was awake then. 

Aria forces her eyes to open. She has to stop herself from squinting against the lights in the hotel room, force herself to stand up on her two feet. Dogmeat looks up at her from his place on the bed. When had he moved there? 

“Morning Dogmeat.” Aria says with a smile. He sniffs at her. 

She coughs once or twice in an attempt to disturb the night’s tension out of her, to no avail. The faucet stops. 

Mustering up all the courage she could, Aria heads toward the bathroom. She wasn’t sure how to interact, how much he remembered from the night before, how much needed to be said or left unsaid. 

She isn’t expecting to see Butch standing at the dirty, dusty mirror, switchblade in hand. His eyes are intently focused on his task, and she watches as he drags the blade down against his cheek, shaving whatever stubble existed there. His vault suit is unzipped and left hanging around his waist, and the white tank top underneath is a stark contrast against his tan skin. 

Aria had watched her Dad shave a million times, until he eventually stopped, choosing instead to spend early mornings working on what she now knows was Project Purity. Somehow, watching this felt different, vastly more intimate and a lot less routine. Butch’s eyes meet her’s in the mirror. 

“Mornin’,” he says, so casual. 

“Hey,” Aria responds. “How are you feeling?”

It felt like the wrong thing to say, too friendly too sweet. She has to stop herself from cringing at herself. Butch resumes his shaving, breaking eye contact to look back at himself in the mirror. 

“Fine,” he says. “Sorry about your shoes.” 

Aria lets out a humorless laugh. “I wanted to kill you.” 

“Probably wouldn’t be the dumbest way someone died out here.” 

“Maybe not,” Aria laughs. 

Butch finishes shaving, clicks the switchblade back into place. He rolls his wrists, cracks his knuckles, then steps away from the mirror. Finally, he turns around to face Aria, then leans back against the sink. 

“I uh…I’ll give you some caps for some new boots.” 

“No it’s fine,” Aria says. “I cleaned them thoroughly.” 

Butch’s brow furrows. “Well I wanna pay you back somehow.” 

“You really don’t have to. I don’t want anyone to owe me anything.” 

He stares at her, brows furrowed. Aria stares back, and it finally feels like some sense of normalcy has come back. They could just go back to being contentious friends—acquaintances—whatever they were. 

Moments full of silence pass before Butch pushes off the sink’s edge and leans closer to Aria. She doesn’t move. 

His hand reaches up, and for the longest, strangest moment she thinks he might reach out to her cheek, before she realizes that’s not it. Why would that be it? His fingers find their way to the tip of her braid, slung lazily over her shoulder and mussed by a night of uncomfortable sleep. Butch lifts up her braid, rubs the ends of her hairs between his fingers. For whatever reason, Aria finds it quite suffocating. 

“I’ll give you a haircut.” He says, unwilling to meet her eyes. 

It has been so long since anyone had touched her in any capacity, Aria’s body reacts to it like an electric shock. Blush creeps up from her spine, touching the back of her neck and the tips of her ears. She feels warm, too warm, and her palms become clammy. Whatever sense of normalcy she had felt moments ago had vanished into thin air, a memory of a time before. 

Finally, Aria nods. “Sure.” 

“Just lemme know when,” Butch says. He drops her braid, and the gentle thunk of it hitting her chest feels heavier than it should. “I’ll set up shop.” 

Aria lets out a breath, feeling all the air in her body exit heavier than she had been expecting. He steps past her, leaving her and heading toward the other room. Aria reaches up and grabs her braid, staring down at her hair, the dead ends, the ghost of another’s touch invisible on them. 

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Well, shit.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh. Thanks for reading! Feedback, kudos and comments are welcome and appreciated. See you soon!


	6. Chapter 6

There had been a long period of time in which Aria found herself avoiding any form of personal care possible. Her hair had grown long and dead at the ends, her skin muddy and sunburnt. Hell, she wasn’t even sure when the last time she cleaned her glasses had been. Pampering felt like a particularly selfish indulgence, a relic of who she once was when she lived her sheltered, vaulted life. Her stomach flips at the idea of taking time away from other important survival activities to dedicate toward doing her hair up like one of the girls in the magazines her and Amata used to read. 

And yet, when Butch has offered to cut her hair in exchange for throwing up on her boots, Aria couldn’t find it in herself to refuse him. So she lets Dogmeat stay behind in the their room, and heads toward the Muddy Rudder to meet with Butch. 

Rivet City was different in the day. The hallways were crowded, each voice amplified times ten, reverberating off of the old metal walls. No one pays much attention to each other, keeping their heads down and their business to themselves. Aria admires that about the people of Rivet City, mostly just because it means less gossip about the coined Lone Wanderer. It’s the little things. 

Aria reaches the Muddy Rudder and hides her face as she passes by Brock at the door, remembering the embarrassment of two nights ago. He doesn’t say anything meaning he either doesn’t care or doesn’t want to, which both suit Aria just fine. The bar is relatively empty at this early hour, but as she steps down the stairs she spots a familiar figure nursing a glass of something clear at a high table. Butch looks the same as always, but seems to contemplating something very deeply in his glass. Aria quirks an eyebrow at him before chancing a look over at Belle who seems to be watching the pair warily. She shrugs at the other woman before approaching Butch. 

“Hey Butch.” Aria says. Her voice breaks him out of his stupor and he breaks eye contact with his glass to look up at her. A smirk plays on his lips. 

“Hey pipsqueak,” he says. “where’s your pooch?” 

She blanches at the nickname. “I left him at home. He doesn’t like strangers all that much.” 

“I ain’t a stranger.” Butch replies defensively. 

“You _are_ strange, though.” 

He narrows his eyes at her before letting out a scoff. In the fluorescence, they look even lighter, sharper. Aria glances away, willing herself to just have one normal goddamn interaction with the boy. 

“You here for that haircut?” He finally asks. Aria studies his posture, studies the glass on the table in front of him. A leather-clad arm is slung lazily on the back of the chair, and one leg’s ankle rests on the knee of the other. 

“I don’t know if I trust you with scissors,” Aria says. “It’s not even noon yet.” 

Butch’s brow furrows before he looks down at the glass. “Don’t be a worrywart, it’s just water. Don’t you worry, girlie, I’m a professional.” 

Aria chooses to gloss over ‘girlie’ and sighs. She supposes she can trust him on this front. He seems coherent enough, and his eyes are sharp. Aria places her hands on her hips. 

“So where’s your shop?” She asks. 

“Well I don’t have one yet,” Butch begins. “I don’t have big enough clientele yet, so Belle and Brock let me operate outta here.” 

“Really?” Aria asks in disbelief. Neither Belle nor Brock seemed the forgiving type. “Even after the other night?” 

Butch shrugs, and she watches as his broad shoulders rise and fall. 

“Bygones gotta be bygones, right?” 

Aria almost wants to laugh, before she wonders if he’s really even referring to Belle and Brock anymore. Whoever her and Butch had been in the vault felt like two people from a million worlds away. She looks at the dirt underneath her fingernails and frowns. 

“Guess so.” She settles on. 

“Here,” Butch gestures somewhere behind him. “I gotta chair over here.” 

Aria slowly steps around him to find the small circular chair he had been referring to. It was an old barstool that had been hastily ripped up and plopped down, the pleather of the seat tearing to reveal dirty cotton underneath. She sits down, her feet dangling just enough to let the toes of her boots brush the bar floor. 

“You shouldn’t crinkle leather like that.” Butch says as he points to the tunnel snakes jacket she had tied around her waist. Aria shifts her weight, unties the the sleeves, then folds it evenly in her lap. 

“Happy?” 

“You know I made those,” he says. “Stitched the emblem on myself.” 

Aria pictures Butch sitting in his little living room, long fingers pricked a thousand times, determined to plaster his gang logo on some old leather he had found long hidden in the depths of vault storage. It was kind of endearing. 

“Who taught you how to stitch?”

Butch moves behind her, no doubt gathering his tools together. “Ma.” 

Aria doesn’t say anything else, unsure of how to even talk about his mother, much less anything else from back then. 

The weight of her braid between her shoulder blades disappears and she feels the slight tug as Butch begins to pull the at the band keeping it together. He beings to un-plait her hair, and she can feel the swift deftness of his hands as he works through her long hair. Something about it felt too intimate, too close, like when he had grabbed her braid in the bathroom two mornings ago. It helps, this time, that she doesn’t have to look at him directly, but she’s sure he can see the flush crawling up the back of her neck to the tips of her ears. 

Aria’s hair falls against her back, and Butch clears his throat. He steps around to face her front, and he’s so close Aria can smell the musky scent of his pomade. Her eyes level with his chest as he brings two large sections of hair to her front. Both portions are so long that they fall past her breast, just barely touching the ends of her ribcage. 

“Jeez,” Butch says, his breath touching the top of Aria’s head. “When was the last time you got a haircut?” 

“Back in the vault.” She answers plainly. He hums in response. 

“How short you want it?” Butch asks. 

“I don’t know,” Aria says, willing her tone to remain neutral. “You pick.” 

“Hell no.” 

“Why not?” Aria looks up at him now as she asks. He frowns down at her. 

“‘Cuz then if you don’t like it, it’s my fault,” Butch says. “You gotta make your own mistakes.” 

Aria laughs at that, counting up in her head how many mistakes she had made in the past year and a half. 

“You want it short?” He acquiesces, if only by a little bit. 

“Cut it above my shoulders,” Aria says. “That way it’ll be easier to deal with.” 

Butch nods, moving into serious ‘work’ mode again. She watches as he works, feels the heavy weight of her hair slowly begin to lighten. His face is concentrated, so much so that she’s not even sure he notices when the tip of his tongue juts out to touch his top lip. She smiles at the sight. Idiot. 

At one point, toward the end of the haircut, Butch attempts to align the new ends of her hair with her face. As he does, his fingers brush against Aria’s jawline, sending a series of confused flutterings starting at his fingertips and ending in the pit of her stomach. When was the last time anybody had touched her? Had touched her face? Aria swallows a lump in her throat, bites back the stinging feeling behind her eyes. Just how pathetic had she become? 

Finally, after what had to be the longest haircut in the history of all time, Butch nods to himself and puts his scissors back in his pocket. 

“I think I’m done,” he says, his eyes intent on the hair hanging lightly above her shoulders. “There’s a bathroom in the mirror if you wanna go look.” 

Aria stands up, figures she should test her luck. “How does it look?” 

“Are you kiddin’? It’s a Butch DeLoria haircut. That’s a premium, grade-A style you just got for free, girlie. Of course it looks good.” 

She throws him a wry smile. “And how do _I_ look?” 

Butch smirks at her, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Now you’re just fishing for it.” 

“I figured it was worth a shot.” Aria says with a laugh as she heads toward the restroom. 

Though the mirror was dirty, it was enough to see through. Aria takes in her new look, the short, bouncy cut of her dark brown hair framing her face well. She pushes her glasses up by the middle and smiles in spite of herself, feeling a hundred pounds lighter.

“You did a great job, Butch.” Aria says to him as she leaves the restroom and slings the old leather jacket on, feeling bad about crinkling it earlier. He smiles at her, halfway facetious and halfway genuine. 

“Yeah it suits you,” Butch says. “Jacket does too.” 

Aria isn’t sure she trusts his compliments to be 100 percent altruistic, but she appreciates the sentiment all the same. 

“Can I help you clean up?” She asks as she gesture to the sheafs of long, dark hair splayed on the floor.   
“If you want,” Butch nods as he reaches for the broom hanging on the wall next to the chair. “You can just brush the hair off the chair.” 

They clean in silence, Aria watching Butch sweep up all the old hair in a dustbin, looking oh-so-domestic. The only thing he was missing was an apron. He notices her staring. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“Nothing,” Aria says behind a smile. “Watching you clean is funny.” 

“Yeah well, nobody wants to see a bunch of nasty hair laying around on the same ground where they’re eating or drinking. Plus, I don’t wanna get kicked out by Belle and Brock. I’m on thin fuckin’ ice as it is.” Butch explains as he finishes up sweeping. 

Aria grimaces at him, a pang of pity resounding in her chest. She is suddenly struck by an idea. 

“Ever think of setting up shop somewhere else? I might have a better place than this for you.” 

Butch looks at her in disbelief, a ‘huh?’ almost visible on his face. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, it would be a bit of a hike, but the business would be good. And you wouldn’t have to worry about getting kicked out.” The words pour from Aria before she can stop herself. Was she seriously inviting him to Megaton? Was she inviting him to work there, to live there? To live there with her!? Why was she being so casual about this?

Butch quirks an eyebrow at her, then leans in. 

“Well, girlie. I’m listening.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a PSA, please don't try and cut your hair dry. But when you're in the wasteland and water is scarce, you don't use it for things like haircuts. Ok, thanks I just needed to get that off my chest. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I appreciate your patience during the long wait. Real life these past two months has been a LOT, as many of you probably know, but I find solace in my writing and I hope you can too. Kudos and feedback are always appreciated. See you soon! :)


	7. Chapter 7

The road to Megaton felt about ten times longer and more difficult than it actually was, especially when traveling with a loudmouthed, leather-jacket wearing, wannabe gangster. Aria, Butch, and Dogmeat had already stopped three times in the first two hours—potty breaks for the dog, sitting breaks for the vault-accustomed human. Irritation simmered in the pit of Aria’s stomach as they stopped for the fourth time this morning. 

“You know it’s gonna take us a lot longer to get there the more we keep stopping, right?” 

Butch sneers at her from his makeshift seat on a nearby rock. “Don’t your feet hurt?” 

“No?” Aria answers him. 

She had an inkling that traveling with Butch wouldn’t be the easiest task in the world, but she didn’t know that her patience with him would be as thin as it was. Aria thinks back on the beginning of her own journey across the wastes, the few weeks that she had found herself in the company of the strong and silent ghoul that was Charon. How he had tolerated her during that time, she had no idea. Maybe it was a ghoul thing. 

“Well my feet fuckin’ hurt, so we’re gonna stop.” Butch says. 

Dogmeat sniffs at the air, his pointed snout moving this way and that way, ever alert. 

“Butch if we stop for too long we could get tailed or ambushed,” Aria tells him. “We can’t afford to be lazy.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Butch says as he waves his hands dismissively. “Heard.” 

Aria huffs down at him, anger bubbling up through her throat. “Alright dick.” 

She stomps over to him, feeling the satisfying crunch of dry ground and dirt beneath her feet, then reaches down to grab him by the elbow and drag him upwards off his ass, like a child being pulled out of a tantrum. 

“Whoa, whoa, paws off lady!” Butch shuffles out of Aria’s grasp then holds his hands up. 

“We have to go Butch—“ 

The sharp crack of a gunshot interrupts Aria, and she can only duck and cover long after the fact. Looking up, Butch has done the same, but he seems relatively untouched. To her side, Dogmeat growls at the source of the sound, somewhere in the distance. Aria follows his gaze to find a lone Protectron, his robo-arms aimed right for them. 

“HANDS OFF THAT MAN,” It’s booming voice calls out to them. “VIOLENCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.” 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Aria holds her hands up in a surrender, unsure if the obviously faulty Protectron would even be able to read the gesture. 

“Hey,” Butch whispers from behind her. “You distract that thing, and I’ll hotwire it when it’s not lookin’.” 

“You don’t know how to hotwire a Protectron, Butch.” Aria says through gritted teeth, as the robot slowly clunks toward them. 

“And how would you know that?”

“Call it an educated guess.” 

“REMAIN WHERE I CAN SEE YOU.” The Protectron interrupts their argument. 

Aria studies the scene in front of her, examines the options that they could potentially have in front of them. The Protectron was faulty, but it could still shoot, leaving them open and vulnerable. Dogmeat could sneak around, but his teeth would do little against the robot’s metal shell. Two shotgun blasts to the thing’s exposed chest could do the trick, but what would keep it from shooting her on the spot the second she reached for her gun? Butch couldn’t do much, he was standing behind Aria anyways. Wait. 

“Butch,” Aria whispers to him, hands still in the air. “Reach for my shotgun from my belt. _Slowly._ ” 

“Uh,” Butch begins. “Which one is it?” 

“The _shotgun_ looking one.” She grinds her teeth, pushes her tongue hard against her molars. 

“Well there’s two back here that look like a shotgun—“ 

Butch is suddenly interrupted by the all-too-familiar sound of a Super Mutant’s battle cry, and the pair watch as a green brute tumbles through a pile of debris toward the Protectron. Old metal and papers flurry into the air like a sandstorm. 

“PUNY METAL MAN!” It yells. “CRUSH YOU!” 

“VIOLENCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.” The machine aims its guns at the mutant and begins to shoot, to little effect. Aria and Butch watch as the Super Mutant slams its spiked board into the metal chassis of the robot, hear the sickening creak of bent metal. 

Aria sees her opportunity, breathes out a shaky breath, then grabs Butch’s hand. Before he has a second to object, she’s already bolting and he follows closely behind. Dogmeat pushes his canine legs, breaking speed and catching up to Aria quickly. It would only be a matter of time before the mutant would catch on to their scent, and give chase to them too. Aria wanted to put as much distance between the three and the creature as possible, knowing what an enraged Super Mutant could do to two fleshy, squishy human and a fleshy, squishy dog. 

“Agh, fuck!” Butch proclaims from behind her, and her arms snaps as he stops running behind her. Aria quickly turns around to yell at him for stopping, before seeing why. Butch’s ankle was snapped and bloody in an old trap, his face contorted in pain. “Jesus fuck I’m gonna lose my foot!” 

“Butch,” Aria says his name out in a nervous breath. “Hold still.” 

“Can’t do much moving, sister.” 

Aria kneels next to his foot to assess the damage, eyes nervously flickering upward. The alley they had been running through was tight, but still large enough to fit a Super Mutant. He would find them soon enough, so she had to be quick. Thankfully, the trap hadn’t gone deep enough to cut muscle or bone, but the bleeding would be a problem, as well as the now-open wound he would have on his foot. Aria pulls the pin out of the uncomplicated trap, and pries the metal jaws open to free Butch’s ankle. He turns his head upward, his face already pale either from disgust or blood loss. 

“Ok come on,” Aria motions for him to lean on her as she stands up. “We gotta get somewhere close and quiet.” 

She pulls him up and leans him against her. The only noises she can hear are Butch’s hisses of pain and the distant thumping of a mutant’s feet. Blood rushes through her ears. Butch isn’t too heavy, but she has to find a place to patch him up quick. If he were going to die on her, out here, after all they had been through, she was going to kill him. Dogmeat sniffs ahead of them, his ears turned backward to keep track of the Super Mutant’s location. 

Aria walks and Butch hobbles a few feet before he collapses further into her side. She grips him around the arm, grips him around the chest, looking akin to a very awkward hug. Aria swears if they survive this she’s never gonna let him live it down. 

Dark brown eyes scan the street for any sign of shelter before landing on a tiny corner store about 20 feet away. “Butch, you gotta work with me here, buddy.” 

“Mmph.” He grumbles back.

The trio make their way to the corner store, ever aware of the Super Mutant presence growing closer behind them. The bodega was on the bottom floor of what looked to be an old brick apartment building. A faded green canopy covers the front door, and the window is too dusty and stained to see through. Finally, they arrive at the front door, and Aria reaches out tentatively to open the it. 

It was unlocked which meant that it was long abandoned, which meant the potential for feral ghouls. 

“Dogmeat,” Aria whispers harshly, her voice straining under the weight. “See anything?” 

The dog approaches through the front door, nose first, ears cocked inward to catch the sounds of the store. He lets out a soft whine, and Aria drags Butch in close behind. She closes the door behind them with the heel of her boot. 

It’s a dingy little store, with empty shelves and thick film of dust covering everything. Whoever had been here before had picked it clean, and, as far as Aria could tell, the place was abandoned. The large, opaque-with-dust window next to the door has cobwebs collecting in the corners like a gaudy Halloween decoration. The smell of stale air permeates her nose. 

She brings Butch toward the back of the store, keeping them out of sight of the window. Leaning him against the wall, she makes sure his back is supported then cracks her knuckles. Dogmeat cocks his head at her. 

No one would ever mistake Aria for her father, especially when it came to their talents. Where James could find the science in everything, Aria could find the mechanical. Where James could fix a broken bone, Aria could fix a leaky pipe. But time and age had hardened her, had wizened her. The first time she had lost enough blood to be dizzy, she could hear her father’s voice in her head, heard his instructions clear as day to her, even though she had no idea where he was then. At least back then there was a chance he was alive. Now hearing his voice was just painful. 

“Stay awake for me, Butch,” Aria says as she empties her pack. “That’s all I need you to do right now.” 

“Yeah,” He responds to her, clearly but softly. Aria chances a peek at his face. It’s pale and ashen, eyes unfocused on her face. She throws him a forced smile. 

“You’re in good hands.” 

Aria works swiftly and quietly, her hands moving faster than her brain. Her first concern is disinfecting, then slowing the flow of blood, then meds. Disinfecting wouldn’t be too hard, as she typically kept any number of high proof alcohols with her. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be better than leaving it. 

“This is gonna sting,” Aria says as she grabs the bottle and uncaps it. “You can hold my hand if you want.” 

“I ain’t gonna hold your fu—“ Butch cuts himself off with a sharp hiss as Aria pours the liquid against his wound. Doing her best to ignore his hissing pain, Aria takes some gauze and seeps it in the wound, lets the alcohol and blood intermingle. Finally, after she feels like the wound has been sterilized enough, she takes a roll of gauze and winds it tightly around his ankle. She watches as the blood soaks through like a Rorschach test and prays that it’s enough. The last step, the stimpak, seems small in retrospect, but she knew that, if nothing else, it would at least make him feel better. 

Aria wipes her forehead and lets out a hurried breath. Knowing that she did all she could do with present circumstances, she takes a seat next to Butch and keeps her dark eyes steady on his wound. It would bleed through a few gauzes probably, but there wasn’t much to do now except wait it out. It’s not like he could walk on it. 

“Thanks Aria,” Butch says quietly, just enough so that it’s hard to make out. “You’re a good nurse.” 

Aria blames it on the drugs currently pumping through his system, but it sounds genuine, so she flashes him a toothy smile. 

“Thanks Butch.” She says. His face doesn’t betray much, especially as his eyes become more heavy-lidded, his mouth a little lazier, but she thinks maybe she can see some genuine gratefulness there. 

“You must get it from your pops.” He’s still staring at her. 

“Oh,” Aria’s breath catches. “Uh, yeah maybe I guess.” 

“Yeah,” Butch says, more to himself than her. “He was a good guy.” 

Aria doesn’t say anything. It was a nice thing to say about someone you didn’t really know, but what did it really mean to be a ‘good’ guy when you abandon your only living family member to chase a dream, then to die for it. 

“I don’t like good guys.” Aria blurts out, and it feels petty and childish when it escapes her mouth. She loved her father, idolized him and cried for him when he died. It would be a great disservice to James to be immature in his memory, but a part of her felt better when she did it. She misses him, and it’s his fault. 

“Yeah,” Butch says weakly. “I coulda told you that.” 

She turns her head to look at him and realizes how close they’re sitting. Every color in his eyes are clear to her, even in the dark and dinginess of the dilapidated corner store. The smell of his pomade crawls across her skin, sticking to her like a blanket. 

“You need rest.” She tells him, tells herself. 

Butch smiles and leans his head toward her, the coif of his hair nearly touching her forehead. “I feel fine.” 

“Drugs’ll do that,” Aria tries to say it with a straight face, but it’s hard when he’s this close. “Just rest, I’ll wake you up when it’s time to change your gauze.” 

Butch stares at her for a moment, and there is some sort of strange clarity that she can detect behind the heavy glaze in his eyes. For a brief moment, she wonders if the sober part of him is awake and trapped in the back of his head, desperate to have some sort of say. That would happen to her sometimes. 

Butch closes his eyes and leans his head back against the walls, sliding down slower and slower until his cheek was pressed against the leather of Aria’s jacket shoulder. She feels a warm fondness for him in that moment, a tender protectiveness typically reserved for Dogmeat, or her father. Something she didn’t want to find the word for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know next to nothing about treating and dressing wounds. Please be gentle. Thank you for reading! As always, kudos and feedback are appreciated. See you soon!


	8. Chapter 8

Butch snores in his drug-induced slumber and it’s a loud thing that rips through the quiet stillness of the corner store like a steady thrum of a chainsaw’s revving. Aria’s back and bottom had begun to grow sore from the hard edges of the store’s walls and floor. There is an unease that hangs like dust in the air, and Aria eyes flicker back and forth between the storefront and Dogmeat’s prone form in front of them. His posture is relaxed, though his pointed ears are perked toward the front door. Aria hadn’t seen the Super Mutant that they had encountered earlier, but it was hard to say whether they were in the clear or not yet. The heavy pressure of grogginess pulls her eyelids down and makes her bones weary, but she would have to stay awake for Butch’s sake. 

The idea of him dying in his sleep and rotting alone in this little corner store leaves a heavy feeling in her stomach that gnaws its way up her throat and makes her swallow thickly. There had been an impenetrable loneliness that Aria had been running from for so long, and she couldn’t have it catch up with her now, not when she was so close to just being done with it all. Thoughts of nights alone in dark, dank metro stations blink behind her closed eyes. Her head begins to dip when the sudden rip of a loud snore jolts her back up. 

Butch grumbles and fumbles sleepily next to her, and she watches as he blinks the rest from his eyes and surveys the room. There is a moment when she wonders if he’ll recognize her when he sees her, but when his eyes meet her’s, she knows he’s awake and aware. 

“Where the hell are we?” Butch asks, voice raspy from rest. 

“Butch,” Aria grabs his forearms to steady him. Dogmeat looks back at them quizically. “Watch your foot.” 

Butch looks down at his foot and immediately becomes pale again, realizing his injury. “Fuck,” he breathes out. 

“Would you be mad at me if I said it’s not as bad as it looks?” Aria chances. 

“I would call you a fuckin’ liar,” he says as he shifts against the wall, the leather of his jacket crinkling with each movement. “You got any more meds?”

Aria frowns at him. “I have some, but we have to save them for later. We still have to get to Megaton and you still need to rest.” 

“How long have I been asleep, doc?” 

She winces at the nickname. “A few hours. But I don’t think you should walk on that yet. I need to re-dress it the we can go from there.”

He doesn’t reply to that, just stares at Aria through narrowed eyes. The sunken shallow beneath his eyes colors a beautiful purple agains this tan skin. Aria blinks, unable to look in his eyes for too long. Guilt gnawed at her. There could have been something, anything to avoid something like this. It had been her and Dogmeat for so long, she didn’t remember what it felt like to have to care about another human. 

“Go ahead then,” Butch’s voice interrupts her thoughts, and Aria looks back up at him with wide eyes. “Fix me up, doc.”

Aria offers a sheepish smile and nods as she begins to ready the materials in her pack. In her haste to get him meds at first, she had rifled through her pack like a madwoman, leaving gauze and alcohol scattered throughout. She takes the time to grab what she needs then scoots forward to assess the current damage. Slowly un-peeling the gauze, she carefully studies the wound as more and more of it is revealed in through her steady hand. Dried and congealed blood make it difficult to see the true severity of the wound, so she grabs a dry cloth and some water to clean it. 

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks as she begins to wipe away the old blood from his wound. If he’s phased by the feeling he doesn’t show it, and Aria isn’t sure if its because he’s putting on a front or if he’s still feeling the effects of the meds from earlier. 

“Talk about what?” Aria asks, not looking up from her work. 

“I don’t know,” Butch says. “Whatever it is I get the feeling you wanna talk about.” 

Aria frowns down at the wound. It’s not gushing blood anymore, which is a positive, but it’s bigger than she thought. Still not too deep, but the edges are farther apart than they first appeared. She sighs. “I’m gonna clean it again.”

Butch grumbles in frustration, but he doesn’t protest, which Aria takes as her go-ahead to clean the wound. Using that same alcohol from earlier, albeit a little less, Aria takes the cloth from before and soaks it. Anticipating the imminent pain, Aria presses the cloth to his wound quickly, before he can even think about it. She doesn't look at him, choosing instead to focus on the wound in front of her. 

“I guess while I’ve got you here,” Aria begins as she wipes carefully. "I have a question.” 

“I’m not in the best position to answer them right now,” Butch hisses. “As you can clearly see.” 

She ignores him. “Why were you so mean to me?” 

A pregnant pause fills the air. Aria doesn’t expect him to answer right away, but then again, she’s not really sure what she actually wants to hear from him. They had never really alluded to their past relationship beyond the occasional mention here and there. 

“You were easy pickins’—“ 

“What does that mean?” Aria looks up from her work to look at his face. He stares at her placidly, one eyebrow resting higher on his forehead than the other. 

“You were a pip-squeak and a huge dork,” Butch says with a shrug. “Easy pickins’” 

“But why did you hate me so much? I never did anything to you.” Aria frowns at him. 

“I don’t know, Aria, I was a little shit. I did stupid stuff all the time.” 

“And when you were older? What’s your excuse for then?” She stops treating his wound, letting her hands rest on his shin, eyes focused intently on his face. All this time, she never thought she would ever get the chance to confront Buch about the way he treated her. She feels empowered and scared all at once. 

Butch stares at her, before sighing. “You were friends with Amata, and you had a good dad. Didn’t matter how much older we got or how different we looked, you were still that same dork who fought me over that stupid sweet roll. Made me mad.” 

“What made you mad?” 

“I don’t know, Aria!” Butch’s voice rises, and it seems so loud in the tiny store. “You had things I didn’t. People treated you different. Didn’t seem fair.” 

Aria grabs the gauze from her pack and begins to unroll it. It felt easier than trying to unpack what Butch had told her. She had never seen herself as particularly blessed with her life in the vault. Yes she had friends, but Amata would always hate her for what she did to her father. Yes she had a father, but he had left for his project, had died right in front of her. People treated her differently now, but not for a lack of strength. So what was any of that worth now?

“Aria,” Butch’s voice interrupts her thoughts. “For what it’s worth?” 

Aria stops wrapping his wound and looks up again at him, seeing the honest look in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry I was such a dick to you. Maybe I can make it up to you.” 

She doesn’t inquire further what that means, but it’s enough for now, so she simply nods and gets back to wrapping. A formal apology just wasn’t in Butch’s nature. 

They sit in silence as Aria finishes up her work and thoughts race through her head. What their next steps would be, how long they would have to stay here, how long it would take to get to Megaton. The stress headache already begins to take form in the pulse at her temple. 

After cleaning up everything and putting her supplies back in her pack, Aria returns to the space next to Butch, albeit at a further distance this time. His apology settled in the back of her mind, trying to parse out how they would interact from here on out. 

“Can I ask you something now?” Butch asks her. Aria doesn’t look at him, but nods. “Why did you keep the jacket? I thought you hated me when you left.” 

“I did,” Aria answers, and she barely feels bad about how quickly she had. “I didn’t hate your mom, and the jacket…”

Butch is looking at her, she knows, but she can’t bring herself to return his gaze. 

“I don’t know,” Aria says. “It was just something that reminded me of home. I told you that.” 

“I was fucked up.” Butch answers her, and she finally looks over at him. Again, his closeness to her unsettles her in a way that lands somewhere between nervousness and excitement. “I didn’t remember your answer.” 

“And now you have it,” She forces an awkward smile at him. “Happy?” 

He frowns at her, a deep line that pouts across his lips. “Why are you mad at me?” 

“I’m not! I just—“ Aria cuts herself off. “Why do you care so much about the jacket? This is the second time you’ve asked me about it.” 

“Because I gave it to you to keep you safe or warm or whatever,” Butch looks away as he says it, and Aria can swear his cheeks tint red. Maybe it’s the lighting in the store. “I didn’t think you’d keep it.” 

“It was—It was a nice gift, Butch.” Aria says to him, partially honest and partially to soothe his ego. 

“Yeah well, you and me are the only Tunnel Snakes left, so you better keep that thing safe.” 

“I didn't know I was a Tunnel Snake,” Aria says. “I think I’m honored.” 

“It’s not easy work, girly,” Butch replies, a lightness in his tone. “I’m holdin’ you to a higher standard than I did with those other boys.” 

She laughs, and it sounds unfamiliar to her. It flutters up from her stomach, through her chest and out of her throat like a breath held in. Letting it go makes her feel lighter.

“I’ll live up to it,” Aria says. “I’m sure.” 

Butch smiles at her, and it’s a small, lovely thing. It’s not the usual dry smirk or the curling sneer, but a simple smile, one where she can see the youth hiding behind a layer of exhaustion and a brightness in the eyes. 

“You should probably get some sleep,” Butch says to her. “I can keep watch.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Butch affirms, waving a hand. “I’m not gonna fall asleep with this tight-ass gauze around my foot, so one of us might as well.” 

“Well ok,” Aria says. “wake me up if a Super Mutant busts down the door to kill us then.” 

“Yeah yeah,” Butch responds. “You’ll be the first to know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was kind of dialogue-heavy, but I really wanted a quiet moment where Butch could apologize honestly for his bullying. The dynamic is important to their relationship (to me) but I think it's something that needs to addressed and squared away before anything overtly romantic happens. That being said, I hope you're all excited for what is coming >:). Thank you for reading and, as always, feedback is appreciated. See you soon!


	9. Chapter 9

The rest of their time spent in the little corner store was split between redressing Butch’s wound, playing lookout, and taking turns sleeping. None of their following conversations held the same weight as the one they had had when Butch first awoke. Topics ranged from old Grognak comics, Rivet City residents, and different Capital Wasteland creatures. It almost felt like the first few conversations one would have with a new friend, as a child—simple and innocent things, the beginning of something. Aria had cobbled enough snacks together to last them a few more days alone in the store, but things were starting to get scarce and they would have to leave sooner rather than later. Butch’s foot seemed to be healing normally, and he would be able to walk on it, albeit slower than normal. Aria didn’t mind picking up some of the slack for him. To be honest, she expected she would be doing that anyway, injured appendage or not. 

“Well,” Butch says as he leans in the doorway, his damaged foot out the door. “I don’t think I’m gonna miss this little prison.” 

Aria turns around to get one last look at the place before they leave. It seems smaller now that they’re not on the run from a murderous Super Mutant, and a part of her marvels at the sheer fact that her and Butch had been contained in a room this size for more than 24 hours without killing each other. She can see the two dust imprints of their bodies on the floor, the scattered shrapnel of her thrown-together first aid. A swell of relief floods her at the fact that they’re both alive. She turns her back and they head out the door together. 

* * *

The rest of their journey back to Megaton had been surprisingly uneventful, which would be a small blessing in and of itself. Aria kept them mostly underground, in the metros. This meant ghouls, but ghouls were a welcome alternative to Super Mutants and Raiders and any other form of Wasteland creature that might make a wounded man, a girl, and a dog easy prey. Butch complained, naturally, of having to retreat back down to another dark and dingy place, but Aria tuned him out and attuned her ears to the sounds of the subway. They encountered a few Ferals here and there, but it was nothing that Aria’s experienced quick shot couldn’t handle. She had tried to ignore the rush of adrenaline that popped with each shot of her pistol, but it was impossible after having been cooped up for what felt like forever. Butch and Dogmeat stayed out of the action mostly, opting instead to watch the rear of their group, though it was becoming hard to ignore the Butch’s stare every time Aria killed another Feral with swift efficiency. 

Finally, the trio make their way out of the tunnels and into the wastes just as the sun begins to kiss the horizon and color the sky pink and orange. It’s warm out, putting a tepid point on an early summer evening. 

As they pass the old supermarket and crest the hill leading toward Megaton, Butch grabs Aria’s elbow, stopping her in her tracks. 

“Hold up,” he says. Aria looks down at where his hand meets her elbow, then up to his face. A look of trepidation crosses his face as they meet eyes. “What’s the plan when we get there?” 

Aria crinkles her eyes and nose, as if lost in thought. “I figured we could get a drink. I’d really like one, at least.”

“And after your drink? Am I setting up shop or what?” 

“Yeah, can you relax? Aren’t you tired of constantly moving?” 

He doesn’t respond to the question at first, and Aria wonders if it touches a nerve. A part of her, a part buried deep down, understood what it was like to be fresh to the wasteland, to be too afraid to slow down and let your thoughts catch up to you.The pair stare at each other in standoff, a frown firmly planted on Butch’s face, until they’re interrupted by a soft whine from Dogmeat. 

“See, even Dogmeat doesn’t like your plan.” Butch motions to the dog as if to make a point. Aria rolls her eyes at him. 

“You don’t speak for him, you know.” 

“He’s a dog, Aria,” Butch says matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t speak at all.” 

She scoffs at him. “Whatever, Butch,” she says. “You can do whatever you want. I’m going to the bar to have a drink. I’m exhausted and I need a break from thinking for a little while. You’re telling me that doesn’t sound good to you?” 

He’s silent for a minute, his eyes focusing intently on the dirt near his injured foot, before speaking up again. “Yeah, I guess. One drink.” 

“One drink,” Aria repeats to him. “That’s all.” 

She lets out a heavy sigh and turns on her heel, eager to enter the walls of the city. It felt like so long since they had been a part of civilization, to be able to drink and eat and interact with other people felt like something new and exciting. It doesn’t take long for the trio to reach the walls of the city, and Aria sneaks a glance at Butch’s wide eyes watching the doors slowly open to the entrance of Megaton. She starts in first, already smelling the familiar smells of the city and the crisp air of the evening. 

Megaton had been a small comfort in the beginning. She had been fresh from the vault, fresh enough that her suit still smelled like antiseptic when she first strolled into Moriarty’s. Nova had been kind, surely in an effort to get some caps out of Aria, but it was welcome nonetheless. Gob’s appearance had scared her at first, but his demeanor softened Aria’s fear and his eventual kindness comforted her. It was by no means perfect, but the people of Megaton had been welcoming to her, which was not something she had expected outside of the vault. Even the hardened town sheriff had given her the keys to the old abandoned house after she had disarmed the bomb in the middle of town. In time, she had begun to feel like a resident of the little village. People wave at them as they walk by, and Aria smiles at each of them. Some of the kids stop to pat Dogmeat’s head. She looks back at Butch only to see him shooting her an incredulous look. 

“What?” 

“They really like you here, huh?” 

“Well,” Aria shrugs at him as they head up toward the bar. “I did save them from nuclear annihilation. That probably counts for something.” 

“How nice of you.” Butch’s voice drips with sarcasm, but Aria can hear the admiration behind it. It could be hard to believe that one person could do all of the things you hear about on the radio, but Aria could say that she at least tried.

Moriarty’s is packed, though the titular man is nowhere to be found. Gob looks up from his task of wiping down the perpetually-dingy bar and smiles as he sees Aria. 

“Hey there,” Gob says to her, ignoring Butch’s prying eyes. “It’s good to see you, friend.” 

“It’s good to see you too, Gob,” Aria says as they approach the bar. “Can I get some vodka? And whatever my friend here wants.” 

Butch doesn’t say anything at first, but chooses rather to uncomfortably stare at Gob. Dogmeat plops down on his haunches at the legs of the barstool. 

“And what’ll that be?” Gob asks tentatively, more toward Aria than Butch. 

“He’ll have whiskey.” Aria responds, staring at Butch. Gob turns around to prepare their drinks, and Aria shakes her head at Butch. 

“What is wrong with you?” She hisses through gritted teeth. 

“I don’t know,” Butch whispers down at her, his voice drowned out by the other patrons in the bar. “Does everyone here look at you like that?” 

“Like what?” 

“Like you’re their messiah or something,” Butch shakes his head as he speaks. “It’s weird.” 

“It’s weird that people would genuinely like me?” 

“They don’t know you like I know you,” Butch says through a smirk. “They didn’t see you yak at your 12th birthday because you ate one too many snack cakes.” 

The tips of Aria’s ears turn red at the memory. “They don’t need to know that.” 

“Your ears are turnin’ red.” Butch says as he pinches the top of Aria’s right ear. She shakes his hand off as the sound of his laugh rings loudly next to her. She was beginning to regret this whole thing. 

“Hey sweetie,” Nova’s voice interrupts them both from somewhere behind Aria. She turns around to see the redheaded woman staring at the pair with a particularly mischievous smirk. “Who’s your boyfriend?” 

“He’s not my—“ Aria cuts herself off. “Uh, this is Butch. Butch this is Nova. She works here.” 

He quirks an eyebrow at Aria before putting on a contrived smirk and running a hand through his coiffed hair. “Nice to meet you, Miss Nova.” 

“‘Miss’? Where did you find this one?” Nova asks with a disbelieving smile. 

“Stuck to the bottom of my shoe,” Aria says. “And he’s not a paying customer, just so you know.” 

Nova’s eyes flicker back and forth between Aria and Butch, clearly scanning him from head to toe and back again. There’s something about it that unsettles Aria and sets an uneasy edge to the entire interaction—maybe it was from knowing how Nova operated on unknowing and immature men, two qualities that Butch possessed tenfold. 

“I got you, honey,” Nova says with a shrug. Aria can feel Butch’s gaze on her, but she refuses to look at the man. Discretion was not his strong suit, and she couldn’t find any reasonable excuse for her behavior that wouldn’t offend Nova. “How long you gonna be in town for?” 

“Probably a while. I need a break from traveling.” Aria says. Gob steps over toward them, briefly glancing at Nova before sliding Aria and Butch their drinks. She lifts her glass in cheers toward him throwing him an easy smile, then shoots the liquor quick enough that when she snaps her head back and leans forward again, stars pop in her eyes. 

“You ok, hon?” Nova’s voice comes from somewhere behind Aria. She nods, not to Nova in particular, but just to end the inquiry. She motions to Gob then to her glass to ask for another. Butch sips at his whiskey from his spot next to Aria. She still isn’t looking at him. 

“Mind giving me and my friend a second here, miss?” Butch says. 

Aria doesn’t hear Nova say anything in response, but judging by the closer proximity of Butch, she assumes that the other woman has given them some space. Gob slides another glass of vodka toward Aria, and she barely hesitates to shoot the burning liquid. It slides down her throat, harsh and slow, but she can already feel the heavy warmth on her limbs, on her bones. 

“What was that all about?” Butch asks Aria. 

She finally looks over at him and frowns when she has to crane her neck up to see him from her seat. “Nova’s sweet but she’ll get a hundred caps out of you before you can even get your pants back on. And I’m not letting you use _our_ caps just to get laid.” 

“Speaking from experience?” Butch asks with a sneer. 

Aria’s ears turn red again, the liquor making them feel hotter than they were. “Don’t be a creep,” she slurs on the last syllable, words suddenly feeling a lot more complicated to form. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Butch clasps a hand on her shoulder. “But maybe you oughta slow down. Otherwise you’re gonna have to drunkenly navigate us home and I’m tired.” 

“You’re tired?” Aria looks at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, I forgot you spent the past few days staying up and stressing and playing doctor to your dumbass friend who went and got his foot fucked up. Oh wait. That was me.” 

Butch’s nostrils flare and his eyebrows furrow. The words feel cruel and wrong, but it feels good to be angry at him. Aria can practically see the smoke come out of his ears. 

“You don’t have to be a dick,” Butch says. “You know I appreciate you fixin’ me up.” 

“So if you appreciate me, show it. Let me get drunk and be stupid.” 

The pair stare at each other, caught in a showdown. Aria knows that they’re beginning to attract attention, but most folks would just assume them as another couple in a fight at a bar. While that was pretty far from the truth, it was common enough to work in both their favor. Most people didn’t insert themselves into a couple’s business like that. 

Butch sighs. “Fine. Just…don’t do anything you’ll regret. I promise you, it’s not worth it, not matter what your stupid, drunk brain might be tellin’ you to do.” 

“What?” Aria smiles at him, flush creeping onto her cheeks. “I’m a responsible person, Butch, don’t worry about me.” 

His halfhearted smile seems unconvinced. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure this will end up great! 
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and feedback!! I really appreciate it. More to come soon!


	10. Chapter 10

All five senses seem to flood back to Aria at once in a cacophony of sensations and hungover discomfort—the smell of her old, dingy house, the taste of a dry tongue and hints of liquor in the back of her mouth, the morning sun filtering in through the holes in her paneling, the sounds of a dog’s healthy panting. Her body aches in places that don’t make sense to ache, and a headache crawls up from the bottom of her neck toward the crown of her head. Willing her eyes to open, Aria finds herself flat on her back on the old couch in her Megaton home. Surveying the room, she finds Dogmeat’s laying form near the bottom of the stairs, her boots unlaced and unceremoniously dumped by the doorway, and a bucket next to her on the floor. Besides that, nothing seems particularly out of place. In fact, things seem tidier than she had left them all those weeks ago. 

The gentle thump of another’s footsteps shake the dust from the ceiling above her head, and she can only pray that it’s Butch. If an intruder were to find her in this incredibly vulnerable and incredibly hungover state, she’s not sure she could even get to her gun in time to shoot. Dogmeat whines softly as the person upstairs makes their way down the steps. 

Thankfully, it’s just Butch. A feeling of warm and soft familiarity settles in Aria’s stomach, and even in her current state, she can’t help but feel glad to see him. 

“Morning, Butch.” Aria croaks out, her throat feeling scratched and dry from disuse. Butch stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks over at Aria’s form on the couch. A funny look crosses his face before Dogmeat gets up off of his haunches and greets the man, wagging his tail and panting happily. 

“Hey pooch,” Butch greets Dogmeat first, with a pat on the head. He turns his gaze back up to Aria. “Morning sunshine. How you feelin’?” 

Aria grimaces, turning her gaze back up to the ceiling. “I feel like shit.” 

“You had a rough night.” Butch says matter-of-factly. 

“What happened?” 

Butch pauses, scratches the nape of his neck. “You don’t remember?” 

“I remember being at the bar, and talking to Nova,” Aria says. “I remember…I was a dick to you.” 

Butch doesn’t respond to her for a few moments, which seems strange to Aria. Far be it for Butch to not milk an apology from her. She couldn’t even get a light ribbing out of him. Something strange must have happened last night—something she can’t drag from the recesses of her memories despite how hard she tries. 

“That’s the last thing you remember?” Butch asks. He steps closer to her, limping slightly on his weak ankle. He plops down on the ratty couch right in front of Aria’s legs. His proximity to her feels equal parts familiar and foreign.

“What did I do?” 

“You just—“ Butch cuts himself off, then finally looks Aria in the eye. “You said some weird stuff. Stuff about me and us traveling together.”

Aria sits up, her back pressing against the arm of the couch uncomfortably. She closes her eyes, squishes them together until she feels a pinch of pain in her eyebrows. A hazy inkling comes to mind, a throwaway comment she had definitely made to Butch. She had been leaning on him, she remembers. There was the feeling of his leather jacket against her side, the smell of his old pomade. 

_“You smell nice.”_

Aria inwardly cringes, praying that was the extent of her embarrassment for the night. She was sure it wasn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” Aria picks at a loose thread on the cushion. “I say stupid shit when I drink.” 

“Me too,” Butch says, averting his eyes. “But you were still sober when you told that Nova lady that me and you were together.” 

Aria’s brain slows at the statement. Why did that matter to him? She had already explained that Nova would gladly take advantage of his gullibility and horniness. 

“So?” 

“‘So’?” Butch furrows his brows at her. 

“What’s wrong with that?” 

Butch doesn’t say anything, just fixes her with a perplexed glare. Dogmeat yawns from his spot on the floor. 

“It was…” Aria struggles with the words, sleep-addled and sore in her hungover state. “I was just trying to…” 

The sentence peters off into the quiet morning air. It was hard to qualify the sentiment, especially mixed with all of the little things that had brought them closer over the past few weeks—the tempestuous reunion at Rivet City, those quiet moments when Aria’s breath would catch and stutter for seemingly no reason, the desperation to save his life in that little corner store. Aria’s stomach sinks, the realization thudding like a rock. _Oh no._

She studies his profile, the sharp lines of his nose, the freshly-shaved jaw, the pout of his lips. A wave of heat warms her face. _Oh no._

“I’m sorry,” Aria says. “I guess I thought it would be more to our advantage if people thought we were—“ 

“Together?” 

She forces a smile at him, hopes he can’t see right through her. “Yes.” 

He meets her eyes across the couch like he’s trying to study her. The sudden intensity of his stare makes Aria feel like she’s in an interrogation. It was making it hard to breathe. 

“Hey, you’re the expert on this place,” Butch finally acquiesces, the familiar nonchalance replacing the heaviness. “Whatever you say, boss.”

_Don’t call me that,_ Aria thinks. “If that makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to do it.” She says. 

Butch scoffs. “There are worse things then folks thinking I’m shacking up with you, trust me.” 

A part of her wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, ask him what the hell he means by that, but another part, a much louder part of her, fears the answer. Besides, at what point did the difference between faking it and reality become negligible? Her headache throbs. 

“Well anyways,” Aria says, desperate to stop talking like this. “thanks for taking care of me last night. I’m surprised you were able to find my place without my help.” 

“Dogmeat did most of the work,” Butch says. “He’s a good dog. Sniffed his way right on home. You called him your ‘baby boy.’ I told you that was embarrassing. You told me my face was embarrassing.” 

Aria cringes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it.” 

Butch smirks at her. “That’s ok. You said that right after.” 

Aria nods to herself. She could count on one hand the number of times she had gotten drunk enough to forget the night before. Once as a teen, a Mother’s Day without Amata. Once as a young woman, when her father died. Charon had been there, strong and silent and not judging. The third time was now, in front of Butch. She knew that her body couldn’t handle that much alcohol, that she would always feel awful the next day, sometimes even two days after. It didn’t matter. Sometimes it was worth it. 

“I’m gonna go get something to eat,” Butch says as he suddenly jumps up from the couch. Dogmeat stands up with him, panting and tail wagging. “Think you can keep anything down?” 

“No sugar,” Aria tells him. “Anything that doesn’t have sugar in it.” 

“No sugar,” He smiles down at her, sickly sweet. “I’ll be back soon.” 

Aria scoots back down to lay as he leaves. Dogmeat whines at her. 

“I know, I know,” Aria says. “Bad taste in men.” 

The thought squirms back into her brain, taking shape there. She wonders what Amata would say, what her dad would say. Memories come to the surface, all of the fights her and Butch used to get into when they were kids. Every birthday party ruined by something stupid and small—pulled hair and gut-punches. He used to call her ‘nosebleed.’ She thinks of being a teenager with him, thinks of the way he used to tease her, used to try and tie her braid to the back of her school chair. The thoughts all start to blend together, a perfect concoction in her own mind, her brain’s last-ditch attempt at dissuading her from her heart’s feelings. 

But when she closes her eyes and presses her fingers to her eyelids, new thoughts take shape there—how his jaw would feel underneath her fingertips, how his hands would feel running through her hair, pulling it. How his lips would feel against her’s. Aria’s face heats one part in shame and one part in excitement. She covers her face fully with her hands. 

The thought of telling him makes her sick to her stomach, makes bile settle in the back of her throat. What would he say? What would he do? Knowing him now almost felt like knowing a new person, a new person with which she had to attempt to navigate a relationship with. Adding feelings on top of it all made it all the more daunting. No. She couldn’t tell him—wouldn’t tell him. Not if she could help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love a good moment of realization. 
> 
> Shorter chapter this time, but next one coming up soon! Thank you for reading and for the kudos and feedback. Every little bit is appreciated. : ) See you soon!


	11. Chapter 11

As the summer progressed, Butch and Aria were able to find a rhythm with one another. She would go out and do supply runs for traders here and there, for Lucas Simms, and even once or twice for Moriarty. Butch’s barbershop ran out of Aria’s living room, and she would go out of her way to avoid office hours. It wasn’t about avoiding Butch, but rather avoiding having townsfolk see them together. Word had spread quickly that the Lone Wanderer had a boyfriend and that he was living with her in Megaton. The truth was a little more complicated than that. 

Sometimes they would have dinner together, have conversation over bowls of noodles. At times, it was hard for Aria to talk to him, feeling like her mouth was made out of cotton and her words sounded silly and wrong. Butch never seemed to notice. 

One early July evening, she notices him on their patio, legs dangling off the side, above the buildings below. He fiddles with something in his hand.

“Butch?” 

Butch jumps at the sound of her voice, and shuffles with whatever he has in his hands, stuffing it awkwardly in a jacket pocket. “Sheesh, don't sneak up on a guy like that.” 

Aria takes a spot next to him, mirroring his posture, legs slung lazily over the side. 

“Sorry,” Aria smiles, ignoring his panicked glance. “What’re you working on?” 

“Uh,” Butch fiddles with whatever he has in his pocket. “New razor—for the shop.” 

“Really? I didn’t know you liked doing that kind of stuff. Making stuff.” 

“Well,” Butch smirks. “You know I’m good with my hands.” 

Aria frowns at him. The last thing she wants to think about in this moment is his hands, and what he could do with them. “You ever gonna back up all this talk or are you just blowing hot air?”

He laughs a quick, sharp staccato sound. “You know I like the sound of my own voice, girly.” 

“Yeah, that I do know.” Aria says it with a smile. In these past weeks, ever since Aria had had the life-shattering realization of her feelings for Butch, there had been moments here and there when things that used to annoy her about Butch were suddenly making her smile. His attitude, which had once been the bane of her childhood existence now seemed appealing to her—that easy confidence that came so naturally to him. The dedication to his leather jacket and coiffed hair persona. Everything that once made her roll her eyes now endeared him to her, made butterflies flutter in the pit of her stomach every time he smiles at her. 

“I know you haven’t really been out of town lately,” Butch says to her, interrupting her runaway thoughts. “You stickin’ around for awhile still?” 

“I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore,” the honesty comes so easy from her, brought forth by so much time spent keeping it locked inside. “There are things that I—that I know I have to do. I just don’t know how to do them alone.” 

Butch doesn’t reply to her, and she watches his adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows back whatever response he might have been thinking of. Aria focuses on someone walking below them on the ground, follows their form as they stroll the streets of Megaton. 

“Anyways,” she says. “I don’t mind staying here. I know everybody.” 

Butch clears his throat. “You know, if you go somewhere and you need someone to carry your things I can come with you.” 

Aria smiles despite herself. She looks over at him, watches as he fiddles with whatever he has in his pocket, his eyes trained steadily on the same person she had been watching. The thought that he would even want to go with her in the first place made a warmth bloom up through her chest out to her fingers. But she sees him in her mind, sees his weakened form on the floor of an old corner store, and the warm feeling turns cold. 

“I appreciate the offer,” Aria says, chancing a brief look at his face. He’s watching her, eyes cast to the side. “But it’s something that I have to do by myself.” 

Butch hums. “If you change your mind, my offer still stands.” 

“What about your shop?” Aria says as she gestures to the house behind them. 

“I ain't worried about losing customers,” Butch says. “Besides, maybe I need to take my show on the road anyways.”

Aria takes a deep breath in, holds it steady in her lungs then lets it go through her nostrils. A thought needled in the back of her head, the terrible feeling of needing to know. 

“Why do you want to come with me?” She asks. When the words leave her mouth, it feels a lot less casual than she had intended. Butch stops fiddling with whatever he has in his pocket and places his hands on his knees, knuckles clenched white in the afternoon sun. 

“I…” he struggles, doesn’t look at her, scratches a spot on his eyebrows. “Well I don’t know if you know the code, but Tunnel Snakes always ride together.” 

Aria scoffs at him. “Don’t you mean they slither together?” 

“Yeah,” Butch says through a perplexed frown. “That’s what I meant.” 

“Yeah.” Aria says, trailing off. They sit in silence together for what feels like a lifetime. Aria wasn’t sure what she could say to make things less awkward, what she could say to try and bring the words out of him. It used to be so easy to provoke him, but anything she would have said dies on her tongue.

“It feels better being with you,” Butch finally says, quietly, just above a whisper. “That’s all.” 

It feels like someone grabs her stomach from the inside and pulls it up to her throat. Blush covers her cheeks, she can feel the warmth immediately. There was something both thrilling and terrifying about another person finding comfort in your company. Aria takes another breath, slow in her lungs then fast out her nose. 

“I feel the same.” Aria says. She sneaks a glance at him, sees the light dusting of pink across his cheeks, the furrow in his brows, his eyes focused on the ground below them. 

Butch scratches the back of his neck, eyes finally rising to meet her’s. “When are you thinking of leaving?” 

“Maybe next week.” Aria almost phrases it as a question, as if he could stop her somehow. 

“Next week?” Butch says incredulously. “What about your birthday?” 

This stops Aria. “What?” 

“Your birthday is next week,” Butch says to her, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t tell me your forgot your own birthday.” 

Aria had forgotten her own birthday. Back in the day, back when she was still a stupid kid, birthdays used to be something worth celebrating. A cake shared with dad, gifts from some of their neighbors in the vault, and a party that would only occasionally end with someone getting a bloody nose. It had been so long since she had thought about her birthday, she realizes that the last one passed her by without notice. 

“You remembered?” Aria asks. 

Butch frowns. “You forgot?”

“I guess I just didn’t think about it,” Aria says. “I’ll be 21.” 

“Well, if you’re not gonna be around…” Butch trails off, his words pausing on his lips. 

“I guess I just don’t see the point in celebrating it. Why? What—“ She stops. Was he planning something? What motivation did Butch have to remember her birthday?

Butch sighs, fiddles with whatever he has in his pocket. “I got you something.” 

“Me?” Aria can’t believe what she was hearing. Butch had never intentionally given Aria anything before, besides a haircut. While that was a kind gesture, kinder than she had ever been accustomed to, it was more about owing her than gifting her. 

“Yeah,” Butch finally looks at her, eyes blue and bright in the hazy evening sunset. “Well I made it for you.” 

She’ll laugh if it’s a sweet roll, then she’ll punch him in the gut. 

But whatever Butch had made her was nothing organic, she sees as he pulls it out of his pocket. It’s metal and a little mangled, but it’s been crafted carefully—a long torso, two front legs, a thick neck, two pointed ears at the top of a snouted, dog’s head. It was a metal craft, formed with a mixture of thin wire, thick wire and an old tin can. 

“Oh,” The breath gets knocked out of Aria’s lungs as she holds her hands out to cradle the tiny, metal creation. “It’s Dogmeat.” 

Butch carefully places the half-finished figure in her hands. She can feel the still-warm metal of his two front paws on her palm, the awkward way he sat in her hands, Butch’s still lingering hands hovering above him. 

“I started workin’ on it a few weeks ago,” Butch says, seemingly oblivious to the way he was making Aria’s stomach twist. “It was supposed to be a surprise but if you’re leaving I ain’t gotta choice.” 

She can’t bring herself to look at him, awestruck and speechless at the tiny creation in her hands. When was the last time someone had made something for her? Why did Butch, of all people, craft such a delicate, thoughtful gift? Aria closes her eyes, feels the warmth roll up from her belly into her cheeks and ears. A soft breeze brushes past them. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Aria says, finally looking at him. He’s staring at her, his expression somewhere between apprehensive and embarrassed. “No one’s ever done something like this for me before.” 

A smile breaks across his feature, coy and small. “You can start with a ‘thank you, Butch’ and we can go from there.” 

She smiles back at him, unable to help but mirror his expression. It feels like the longer she stares at him, the tighter a tiny invisible string runs taut between them. The universe compels her forward, and she presses her lips against his before she can think any further on it. 

There is a brief second of trepidation, before he returns the kiss with equal enthusiasm. Nothing else in the moment matters, not the sounds of the summer night, nor the people who may see them from below. A light airiness bubbles up through Aria’s lungs, fills her with a unique sense of warmth that turns her legs into jelly. The invisible string between them twists and curls, pulled together by two people who had found one another and got a second chance. His lips are warm. Aria pulls away before her hands try to wander. She clutches mini-Dogmeat, pulls it closer to her chest. 

He looks at her, eyes wide and a wide smile on his lips. She places her palm on the side of his face, feels the sharp cut of his jaw beneath her fingers, the hint of stubble prickling at the calloused skin on her fingers. 

Aria smiles at him, soft and warm like the night. “Thank you, Butch.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drops this and runs*
> 
> thank you for reading :) the kudos and feedback mean a lot to me! see you soon.


	12. Chapter 12

It had been so long since Aria had felt the touch of another person, so long since another’s hands were on her neck, her hips, the small of her back. It sets a light, fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach that trails with every touch. It had been awkward for a moment, the summer heat settling in the air between her and Butch, the exchanged smile after their shared kiss. 

But he had followed when she got up and headed toward the house behind them. When the door had clicked shut behind them, he followed then too. When she had dragged him down for another kiss, this one longer and sharper and _more_ she knew he would always be good at following her. 

Aria breaks away first, breathless and flushed from the neck up. “If you want to stop just let me know—“ 

“Aria,” Butch interrupts her. “Please.” 

Well, no one would say he wasn’t polite. 

So they don’t stop, they don’t stop for the rest of the night. Not when the bed beckons them, not when their clothes had been sitting on the floor for too long, not when the earliest sky blue light of the dawn starts to crack through the holes in the ceiling. 

Admittedly, Aria had thought of this before. If she was really being honest with herself, she thought about it long before she even left the vault. Back then it was an embarrassment to think of the size of his hands, the way his hair would loosen from that perfect curl of his, the way he would have said her name close and sharp right next to her ear. Now it was a memory, all of those things. She could tuck it away and keep it in her pocket for lonelier nights. 

It had happened. Quite a few times, in fact. 

Aria lays there in the early morning light, sweat cooling on her bare skin, staring at his face, wondering. 

“Did you know this was going to happen?” She asks. She feels too loud in their quiet room. 

“Huh?” Butch’s turns to look at her, the muscles running taut along the side of his neck. 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Did you know that we were going to do this? All along?” 

“No,” Butch blinks slowly at her, like she might be a little crazy. “You think I would ever think this would happen in a million years? No way.” 

Aria frowns. “Oh.” 

“No I just mean—fuck,” Butch grunts in frustration, shifts in the bed so that he’s almost laying on top of her again, his arm wrapping around Aria’s bare shoulder. He pokes a finger at her sternum, traces a pattern there that she can’t see. “I didn’t think you’d ever wanna be with a guy like me.” 

“‘A guy like you’? What kinda guy are you, Butch?” Aria shifts upward so she’s leaning on her elbows. 

“Well,” Butch’s hand lowers, lightly trailing over the skin pulled tightly across her ribs. She hopes he can’t feel the way her skin prickles at that. “You’re you. You used to hate me. And I’m me. Seems like you could get any guy you wanted.” 

Aria smiles at him, feeling that familiar fondness for him bubble up in her chest. It wasn’t necessarily humility that he was expressing, but rather a sense of awe for her—the idea that she could do whatever she wanted, that she could have whatever she wanted. No person had ever expressed that to her before. 

“How long have you been wanting to do that?” She asks him. 

Butch frowns, his face contorted into a semblance of deep thought. She smiles at him, thinks of all the other ways she could make his face look. 

“When you walked into that bar and I was fucked up out of my mind,” Butch says. “You were so mad at me and you were trying to give me water and I was being an ass. Then you dumped the whole glass on me.” 

“Really?” Aria asks incredulously. “That’s when?” 

“Well we were in that hallway together, and you were so close to me. I don’t know. I know I was messed up, but I coulda done it right then and there. You were just so…” 

When he doesn’t finish his thought, Aria pipes up. “Annoying?” 

“No, I was gonna say hot,” Butch says. “But I don’t think that’s right either. You were just so _you._ Like you had been there the whole time. Beautiful—I guess is what I meant.” 

He lets the compliment hang in the air for a moment, and Aria lets it wrap around her, lets it seep into her skin. She’s not sure anyone has ever called her beautiful before. Maybe in a past life, in a vault deep beneath the earth. 

“Jesus,” Butch says. “Sorry, that was corny.” 

Aria frowns at him. “I liked it.” 

“Yeah well,” Butch pokes her side. “I’m not good at that stuff. Like I said, I dunno why you picked me. You coulda had any guy, ghoul or girl you ever wanted.” 

“Well,” Aria smirks and swings her leg over so that she’s on top of him again, then she leans in close, almost so their noses touch. “I want you.” 

With that, the rest of the morning passes by in a hazy blur. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a quick interlude...something to transition into the ending because I have been so busy with work and real life, but I don't want to neglect my babies :( also I can't write a steamy scene to save my life, so bear with me here. As always, thank you for the kudos, comments and feedback. See you soon :)


	13. Chapter 13

“Ok, two super mutants, two ghouls and a raider?” 

“No.” 

“Three super mutants?” 

Aria narrows her eyes at him. “You seriously think I’ve killed three super mutants in one shot?” 

Butch smiles at her. “I’ve seen you do some pretty nasty shit with a grenade and one of those launchers.” 

The mornings seem to go by much slower now. They spend their time in their Megaton home, lounging lazily in Aria’s little bed. The sun filters through the holes in the walls, making patterns of light on their skin. Aria makes breakfast sometimes. It is more peaceful than she thinks she deserves. 

They were in the middle of a spirited debate this morning, coffee long since abandoned on the hot plate. Butch fiddles with the ends of Aria’s hair letting the strands weave in and out of his slender fingers. A thought begins to creep in the back of Aria’s mind, a thought that had long been there, wiggling around in the back of her brain like a bad joke. She needed to leave soon. 

But Butch was here, and he was so tangible and so _real._ Real enough that none of the world’s problems really seemed all that important anymore. Morning light dances on his tan skin, paints him pretty like a picture. She knows the longer it goes on, the more painful it will be. 

“Butch?" Aria addresses him as she sits up in bed, leaning on her elbows. 

He smiles at her. “Yes?” He draws out the word, teasing her. 

“There's something I have to tell you,” Aria begins. “I don’t think you’ll like it.” 

Butch raises an eyebrow at her, but he remains silent. His silence isn’t the blessing she had thought it would be. 

“Remember when I told you about that thing that I still had to do?” 

He nods. She swallows. 

“I have to go soon.” She says it quickly, like ripping off the bandaid. The words hang heavy in the morning air of the room. Butch looks at her, one eyebrow still high in query. Aria can hear the heartbeat in her ears, Dogmeat’s soft pants from somewhere downstairs. 

“Ok well,” Butch begins. “Just let me know when and I’ll pack my bag.” 

Aria sighs. “Butch I—this is something that I have to do by myself.” 

“Why?” Butch argues, his voice hitching. “Aria, my foot is fine.” 

If only it were as simple as his foot. Aria reaches out, places a palm against his cheek. The beginnings of stubble were there, still unshaven in the morning. She feels the sharp jut of his cheekbone, rubs her thumb against it to savor the feel of it. If nothing else, Aria would have these moments with him. Even if she broke his heart. She was selfish. 

“It’s not about your foot,” Aria says. “It’s something that my dad started, something I have to finish.” 

Butch grabs her wrist, his strong fingers wrapping all the way around it. “Aria, if this is some poindexter scientist hubbub, just see if you can get those doctors at Rivet City to do it.” 

She brings her hand back to her side. Already, she was losing him. “It has to be me.” 

Butch leans up on his elbows, matching Aria’s posture as he suddenly grows defensive. “Why does it have to be you? Why can’t you bring me?” 

“Because I don't want you to get hurt.” 

“But it’s all well and good if you get hurt? That doesn’t make a whole lotta sense to me.” 

She stares at him, wonders at how they could have come to cared for each other so deeply in the time since they had both left the vault. A million years ago, it would have seemed impossible to feel the shy tenderness, the intimacy of her feelings for him, for anyone. It felt like a weakness, this softness she was feeling, which scares her more than the idea that she may traipsing to her death any day now.

“I have to finish what he started,” Aria can’t bear to look at him, feels the way his eyes won’t leave her face. “I’m not arguing about it.” 

The pair sit in silence, the previously cozy atmosphere snuffed cold. Aria pushes her palms up against her face, fingertips to her closed eyelids, and takes a deep breath. It hurts. More than she could have expected. If he wanted to leave now, to leave her and not come around again and let her fight her father’s final battle, she would understand. Some sick part of her wishes for it. 

Butch gets out of the bed suddenly, the old springs creaking violently as he stands. He heads out the bedroom door, his foot steps fading as he walks down the stairs. Expecting to hear the door open and close, Aria is surprised at the silence that follows him. His clothes were still on the floor. It feels as though the room is bearing down her, the oppressive silence wrapping up in her limbs and making her feel stuck. Aria swings her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet wincing at the cold, hard floor. She stands slowly and follows him. Padding toward the stairs, she can hear him speaking softly. 

“Gotta be smoking something extra funny if she thinks I’m not going with her.” Butch says from a spot on the couch, bare arm slung over the back. Dogmeat lay on the couch next to him, paws crossed politely, ears forward. Aria smiles at the scene. It was hard to be mad, hard to be frustrated when she knew time was limited. 

“He’s not gonna give you very good advice, I’m afraid.” Aria tells Butch as she leans against the wall, arms crossed. Butch looks up at her, blinks then smirks. 

“You underestimate the canine perspective, my friend.” He says, levity creeping back into his tone.

Aria pushes off the wall and steps toward them, feet pattering against the floor. Dogmeat begins to wag his tail. “That so?” 

“Dogmeat says it would be stupid for you to go without us—your two best guys. I have to say that I agree with him.” 

She stands in front of him now, close enough that he could reach out and grab her if he wanted to. A part of her wants him to. She looks down at him, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Maybe you just have dogbrain.” 

“Hey!” Butch feigns offense, places a hand to his freckled chest. “Or maybe Dogmeat has an advanced human brain. Ever think of that?” 

“I always thought he was smarter than you.” Aria jokes, stepping a little closer, her knees brushing against his. She places her hands on his shoulders, feels the soft skin beneath her fingertips, savors the way his muscles tighten at her touch. 

“Think he’s smarter than both of us combined.” Butch’s voice is a little quieter now, strained against the closeness of their bodies. Dogmeat softly whines at them, hops off the couch before pattering away toward the back of the house. 

“Probably,” Aria says. “He can stay with you—protect you.” 

Butch swallows, averts his eyes. She can tell that he’s struggling with something to say, teetering the tightrope between anger, sadness, acceptance. It plays out so clearly on his face, she wishes she could smooth over the worry lines, the crease in eyebrows. Aria places one of her hands on the side of his face, rubs a thumb gently over the skin there. Butch reaches up, places his hands on the back of Aria’s upper thighs, his fingertips pushing ever so slightly against her skin. 

“I only just got you, Aria,” he says, tone low and heady. “I don’t want to lose you so soon.” 

It sends a tight, heavy ball of pain thudding in her stomach—his attachment to her. She sighs, feels herself letting go as if his fingers and his words were unspooling her resolve right in front her. 

“You won’t lose me.” She says, though it hardly sounds convincing. 

“I ain't lettin’ you get yourself killed for this,” his voice almost sounds desperate. “Let me go with you, at least. That’s all I’m askin’.” 

Aria looks down at him, the way his hair is still mussed from earlier in the morning, the bruised skin on his neck in the shape of a bite, a mysterious scar on his shoulder. When did he get that scar? It would be harder, she thinks, to bring him along. Harder to expose him to the ugly truths of what she would have to do. Harder to let him see her die in front of him—just as she had seen her father die in front of her. She remembers the way his body thumped against the ground. Would her body make the same sound? Would Butch always remember the way it would sound? 

“I might die,” Aria says. “I don’t want you to see that.” 

“Nah,” Butch answers immediately. “You won’t.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“I do,” Butch’s eyes are on her’s, blue and brown. “It ain’t happenin’.” 

She can tell that he believes it, that he believes she will succeed and they will walk out of a burning building together and kiss in the sunset, explosions going off all around. Aria wishes she could be so optimistic. It was almost infectious. 

“You really think we’ll make it out on the other side?” 

Butch smiles at her, savoring his small victor. “We will if you’ve got me.” 

Aria scoffs. “Sure.” 

“Tunnel Snakes always gotta slither together,” Butch says. “You taught me that.” 

“ _You_ taught _me_ that, Butch.” 

“Well then we both know it real well.” 

Aria takes a breath and closes her eyes. It would be nice to not be alone, nice to have someone to face these things with, and wasn’t that the point of a partner? Or whatever her and Butch were? It’s selfish, she knows, but it’s becoming harder and harder to say no to him—to find a good reason to leave him behind. It didn’t feel right. 

“I don’t want to be alone.” Aria finally admits, her voice hardly a whisper. 

Butch smiles at her softly, open and vulnerable and sweet. “You won’t be.” He reaches up, cupping her cheek gently, his fingers feather-light on her cheeks. 

It makes her heart pound, flooded with a warmth she couldn’t describe if she wanted to. It was almost too much to bear, the feeling—like she needed to put it somewhere before it threatened to swallow her whole. 

Aria kneels down, presses a kiss against his soft lips, fingers at the nape of his neck. 

It comes out as a whisper between kisses, nearly disguised as a breath it was so quiet, and quickly swallowed by another kiss. Aria says it, feels it in her chest, through her body then falling softly out of her lips. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End :)   
> I wouldn't have been able to finish this story without all the wonderful comments and kudos from y'all, which I am so grateful for. I would really like to follow Aria's story in the future, so it's good to know that you guys like her ;)  
> Thanks again for reading! See you soon.


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